Jordan Miller

Community moderators have a responsibility to maintain a sense of normalcy and balance within a community. The Invision Community platform includes powerful tools for moderators to help them mitigate issues that may arise. We just enhanced one of them. Our new moderator approval queue feature, available in an upcoming release for all Invision Community clients, arms moderators with more information regarding why an item was sent to the approval queue in the first place. The approval queue is a temporary waiting room for content that can either be approved, denied, hidden or deleted by a community moderator. Sometimes, it’s unclear to a moderator why an item was sent to the approval queue. Our new feature solves that problem by including a reason with every item that needs to be approved. This provides clarity to the moderator in charge of handling items waiting in the wings. There are a bunch of different methods in which an item can be held for approval: Profanity/bad words If a member uses a word you have deemed inappropriate, you may ask the platform via the ‘Word Filter’ option to automatically hold the post for moderator approval. In this example, the word “damn” is included in the Word Filter list. A member attempts to reply with it. Their comment is automatically held for moderator approval along with a reason why. URLs If a member posts a link to a third-party website, you may ask the platform to automatically hold it for moderator approval. Email addresses If a member posts an email address, you may ask the platform to automatically hold it for moderator approval. Reviews If a member posts a review on a digital download or a physical product, you may ask the platform to automatically hold the review for moderator approval. Topics/replies A member, or group of members, must have their posts manually approved by a moderator before they can be seen by the rest of the community. A few other things worth mentioning: The moderator approval queue explanation is compatible with all of our applications (minus the Blog). The Forum and Commerce applications are the only two apps that can be required to have moderator approval at an item level (for example, individual replies within a topic or reviews on a product). This new feature will be available in an upcoming release. Thoughts? Let us know what you think in the comments!

Bringing your community together with both online and in-person events is one of the most powerful ways to create meaningful connections, long-lasting relationships and one-of-a-kind experiences. The pandemic put a stop to many in-person events, but now that the dust is settling and people are beginning to return to some sense of normalcy, physical events are becoming commonplace. However, we can’t ignore the recent surge in online events now that COVID inspired a new norm. Previously, the Calendar application acted as more of a personal planner, focusing on daily, weekly, monthly and yearly happenings. That functionality still exists, but we’ll leave it to Google Calendar and the likes to handle your standard appointments. Instead, we’re shifting focus to community-driven events with our appropriately named app, Events, available for all Invision Community clients. Our Events app features a beautiful overview page that showcases community events. Let’s take a closer look: Featured Events calendar.mp4 Community leaders can now promote member-driven events with the “Feature” option. This highlights the event on the main overview page for all to see. It includes the event’s cover photo, date, title and description. Search Events Search for community events that are located near you. Tapping the “use my location” prompt allows your browser to identify your physical location, then shows a list of events that are in close proximity to you. Get granular with your search. Filter by general location, date and/or whether the event is an in-person or online event. Maps When searching, a map is also available for you to see in an instant what community events are happening. Happening Near You This section shows a list of events happening near you. It includes a snap shot of the events happening near your physical location, as well as a map of where the event is taking place. This tailor-made page displays events based on geo-location, so communities with members from all over the world will view and experience the Events page differently. If there aren’t any events happening, a message block is displayed instead that says: Happening Today On the day of, your event will include a badge to show the entire community the special event is happening. Online Events This section displays a list of virtual events within your community. Events are shown in chronological order by date and time. Browse by month We extended the search functionality to automatically show both in-person and online events categorized by the month. This is particularly useful to plan what events you’d like to attend and also see what’s in the pipeline. Event Page Here's an example of what an Event's page looks like. It includes the event details, a map if it's an in-person event and an “Open Event” linked button for the online events. Optionally members can RSVP or confirm they attended when you request that per event. Integrations A particularly useful addition to our new Events application is the inclusion of popular, third-party video streaming platforms. When creating a virtual event in your Events application, you may include a link to your event and the platform will advertise it with the vendor’s logo so your community knows what to expect. When your members are ready to join, choosing the “Open Event” button will set them on their way. Below is a complete list of platforms that Invision Community’s Events app can showcase (see examples in the screen shots above): Zoom YouTube EventBrite On24 Facebook Google Webex Slack Discord Microsoft Teams Here are a few examples of how your community can leverage our Events with in-person events: Team building meeting Unite your team with a collaborative event celebrating the company’s wins and victories. Sometimes in-person meetings spark new ideas in ways that a virtual environment can’t. Donation drive Round up your local community and raise money for those in need with an in-person fundraiser. Training programs Gather a group of community moderators and/or employees together and teach them how to innovate, strategize and lead with a physical training event. Flash sale Make Black Friday, Boxing Day and other major retail sales an event within your community. Encourage your community to show up to a limited-time flash sale where in-person purchases are the only route to obtain an exclusive item. Let's check out some examples for online events: Virtual happy hour Let loose with a few of your community buddies at a virtual happy hour. Schedule something once a week or month and make a few extra friends no matter where they live (a cold brew at 5 a.m. your time when it’s 5 p.m. their time might be a tad awkward, but hey, it’s 5 p.m. somewhere). Holiday party If your company is remote-based, an online holiday party is the perfect solution to spread the good time vibes. Interviews Invite fans of an artist to watch a virtual live stream or music video where they can actively engage and contribute. Fan gatherings Speaking of fans or an artist or brand, unite people who share common interests together with a fan-fueled event. Conduct a Q&A, share inside information and create a space for them to celebrate their collective passions. Our Events application is a welcomed addition designed to bring an enhanced presentation of the events happening in your space both on and offline. Community users can enjoy this interactive overview as an add-on to the traditional view. As a site admin, the overview page can be set as the new default in your AdminCP. We are excited to bring the Events application to all Invision Community plans in an upcoming release. Let us know what you think in the comments.

. Image Scanner.mp4 Invision Community AI can now automatically detect and hold images not suitable for your community. Our new Image Scanner and Discoverability tool, built into the newly-launched Smart Community section of the ACP for clients on select standard plans, has immense moderation power. This new AI feature scans images uploaded by a member, detects what objects the image contains then decides whether or not it’s appropriate to share the image within the community. If the AI believes the image contains anything adult, suggestive and racy, visually disturbing and/or violent, it will either hold the image for moderation or reject the image altogether. Should the image meet the approval requirements and get posted, the image is labeled with what the image “could contain.” These terms optionally show when hovering over the image and allow the image to appear as a search result. These keywords will also support your search. In this example, I searched for the word “apple,” and results included a photo that @Matt posted of an apple. Score thresholds Each uploaded image is assigned a score - essentially a gatekeeper to what is deemed appropriate (and what isn’t). How does the AI determine this score? For each of the categories, a score is returned indicating how confident the service is that the image matches the corresponding category. Depending on the threshold percentage, you can choose to either hold the post for approval, or reject the image. If the content being posted cannot be held for approval (for example inside a personal conversation) the image will be rejected at either threshold. When choosing your percentages, the higher the percentage, the more confident you want the AI to be when it scans images and identifies what the image contains and before holding or rejecting the image. For example, if an image is scanned for adult content and the threshold is 75% or greater in confidence that it contains adult content, the platform will hold the image for moderator approval. For the same image, if it is 85% or greater in confidence that it contains adult content, it will reject the image. If you want to hold more images, resulting in more moderator oversight, you would keep your percentages low. For example, if an image is scanned for visually disturbing content and is 40% or greater in confidence that it contains visually disturbing content, the image will be held for moderator approval. For the same image, if it is 75% or greater in confidence that it contains adult content, it will reject it. The same applies to the suggestive and racy / violence and gore categories: Here are a few more real life examples: Example 1: A sneaky troll decides to disrupt a corporate brand community by posting NSFW images. The image detection can automatically enforce predetermined rules set by the administrator and stop the photo from seeing the light of day in the community. Example 2: A travel company has a community for people to share vacation experiences and information with others. Someone innocently posts a photo wearing a bikini during their trip to the beach, however posting scantily clad images in this community goes against the terms of the community. It is therefore automatically either held for moderation, or is automatically hidden from view. The Image Scanner and Discoverability feature is available now on select standard plans. ACP -> System -> Smart Community -> Features -> Image Scanner Please note the video above uses a Beta version of the Image Scanner; the screen shots in this post reflect the most up-to-date interface. However, the logic remains the same. 😀 Interested in moving to a plan with the Image Scanner feature? Please feel free to reach out to us. Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think about the feature in the replies.