Jordan Miller

Hi AA!

We have made the decision to only bring some advanced features to our Cloud and Enterprise communities, and Zapier is one of them. This means that Zapier will not be available for on-premises licenses.

I realise this contradicts my previous statements from last year. I strive for transparency and share what our current thinking is, which means that sometimes we change course in public.
We are planning some more advanced features which need to leverage the computing power of our cloud hosting network and would be almost impossible to implement outside of our hosting. Trying to produce software for the lowest common denominator is getting increasingly challenging as expected standards move on.

To be clear, we're not going to heavily restrict new features available to the on-premises license, and neither are we considering two separate versions of Invision Community. On this occasion, Zapier makes a better fit for our Cloud and Enterprise communities, and it's backed by our own hosting network.

Petition for "Update Member" action and "When product is purchased" trigger. Loving it so far!

Amazing

Got my answer on another thread

I like this a lot! I do think visibility is important as well. We are going to work on a blog series about moderation eventually, and I think this would be great to explore further. Moderating behind-the-curtain and moderating on stage (so to speak). 
Thanks for the comment @Linux-Is-Best

Love hearing that!! 🥲 Thank you 🙏 

One of the things that I have noticed a lot in people (this is a general observation and not limited to online experiences) is that they tend to react rather than pausing and think through an appropriate and considered response.  That is, instead of taking a step back and taking a longer look at a situation, comment, post, topic (you get the picture) there is the infallibility of people to instantly react.  It's obviously a people issue and one that has become more noticeable over a period of time.  Whether it's the pressures of modern living or something more sociologically ingrained is something that would require a far deeper exploration than a blog topic.  I've seen this 'reaction' from people who bite at the least little thing and literally go over the top without stopping to think.
This is why I'm a great advocate of understanding, compassion, empathy, and education. If we all just reacted rather than employing a little more of those traits, I mentioned, then chaos would rule.  This applies to everyone, everywhere, regardless of who you are, what you do or what you think.  All of those traits I mentioned should be the beating heart of every community, whether online or in the real world and if we all took the time to exercise a little restraint and 'think' rather than 'react' then communities would be the richer for it.
I'm not implying that we search for a utopia or nirvana community - that is a fantasy wish, but it is something we can work towards and something that is worthwhile considering. The alternative is to accept toxicity in people and believe it to be the new norm when it doesn't have to be that way, but it will be that way if we accept it and continue to react.
This article spells it out in a much more erudite way: https://zenhabits.net/respond/
 

Your advice is great Jordan, unfortunately, a very small percentage of individuals lending toxicity to a site are having a bad moment or moments.  They are simply jerks, they know they are jerks and nothing you or I or anyone reading this blog post is likely to change them for the better via “kindness and vulnerability”.  Not that I’m not advocating you not give your suggestions the ole college try.  As the saying goes, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”.
It really comes down to the value of your individual forums and the topics and subsequent comments posted by your members.  In other words, what is the “real” value of the interactions taking place on your site in the grand scheme of things… The higher the “perceived” value the more likely a culture of “caring” (that kindness and vulnerability thing you mentioned) will spring up among your members.
Elevating the conversations to ever higher levels will get people to slow down and think a moment before responding to posts or creating new ones. This is where moderation can be handy.  If you have moderators or willing members help steer conversations that veer off into tangents back on topic or pose thought provoking comments to get others to “really” engage their brains (and never, ever feed the trolls) the jerks will quickly see this isn’t the place for them and they will move on.

While good in theory, this doesn't work at scale, isn't transparent, and doesn't promote accountability. IPS has much room for improvement here in surfacing the built in support request functionality for use between members and moderators/staff. We've done this through customization on our community and I think focusing on the places in IPS where members have touchpoints with staff would reveal a number of opportunities to improve that engagement.
Think about reporting content (one way communication), the warning system (one way communication), and what's available to converse with members from a team standpoint that offers two-way back and forth.
A notable gap, that we could speak to in depth about.

Thanks for taking the time to write this response! I especially like this: "Elevating the conversations to ever higher levels will get people to slow down and think a moment before responding to posts or creating new ones."
I totally agree. 🙏 

There is one hole in this line of thought, not that I totally disagree with it, but vulnerability can lead to exploitation, so you would need to measure this with some other form of displaying firmness.  How you would do that will depend on the individual.  Some people don't like to portray vulnerability, because of the issue of potential exploitation. I would replace the word and the meaning with "understanding" and finding out what leads to the toxicity.  It's extremely easy to ignore the root of an issue and react rather than discover.
Some people are just generally nasty, that's in their nature and these kinds of people will swarm on displays of vulnerability and exploit them to the full, which will raise the toxicity levels higher. So, show some understanding, discover why and then decide on how to deal with the issue.  It may be that some people will be toxic to get attention, their rational posts may be ignored whilst their toxic ones attract attention.
I don't believe there is a one-stop-shop-solution to people's behaviour and every case needs to be measured with the right kind of response. Of course, this means that Admins and Moderators need to be more understanding of people's foibles and ways and get to the root of an issue and then sort it from there.  Many Admins and Moderators may not see this as the right approach and deal with issues differently, it's about finding out what works best for them and whether their methodology actually works in turning toxic into enjoyable.

Appreciate that 🙏  I'm open to the comments about community politics mainly because I want to show people I'm here for them and that they can rely on me to help inspire change. 🙂 

Looking forward to it. Happy to support you in any way I can.

Appreciate that 🙏  I'm open to the comments about community politics mainly because I want to show people I'm here for them and that they can rely on me to help inspire change. 🙂 

To be quite honest this blog post is to congratulate Jordan on his new role as Community Advocate here on Invision. Politics should be brought up elsewhere.
My two cents.
Congratulations once again mate, decided to change the name to one I much more commonly use throughout the net. 😎

Me and my many personalities thanking you

Appreciate that @Linux-Is-Best!! Thank you. Same to you 🙏 

Not quite sure what you mean but get ready for the awesomeness 🙂 

Not quite sure what you mean but get ready for the awesomeness 🙂 

Thank you for saying that 🙏 I'd be interested in seeing them, too.

Sorry to see that perspective 😕 I'm not aware of being hostile towards anyone. If you could link me to the post(s) where I was - I'd love to check it out so I can learn from my mistakes and be better. 🙏 

Sorry to see that perspective 😕 I'm not aware of being hostile towards anyone. If you could link me to the post(s) where I was - I'd love to check it out so I can learn from my mistakes and be better. 🙏 

Thank you for saying that 🙏 I'd be interested in seeing them, too.