Matt

Another great article Joel! You should have your own column by now. 😁
This is the type of content I love reading about. I love that I can find it here. I love that IPS finds it useful enough to post here.
Being an admin/owner of a board is hard enough. It's time consuming.
The more time you put in the more ROI right?
That's not the case with most admins.
What I recommend...
You don't have to do this alone. It's impossible to know everything that is going on. 
Every board admin has a team. They could be paid or volunteer staff. It doesn't matter.
Start having weekly/monthyly team meetings.
Each team member has their own task. Talk about them ... 
What is the progress? 
What news do you have to share?
How is the project coming along?
Etc.
By doing this..
You will find that you will learn from your staff.
You will find that you are getting things done on time. 
You will start creating new opportunities.
More importantly, you will start reacting opportunistically to changes that you may not have been aware of.
(Yeah, that's often the case for many admins - they didn't know about ABC/XYZ until it's too late.)
For small board admins, ask questions. There is no such thing as a stupid question. 
I've been doing this for 20 years, I still ask stupid questions. I still make mistakes.
I'm still learning.

Thanks for posting my blog post.
I want to emphasize the point about reacting opportunistically, and taking advantage of changes that happen in your industry or field.  Part of that requires being aware of what's going on in your industry to begin with.  It's important to apportion part of your time to understanding what's happening to other websites, forums, communities, and brands that are in your space.  You don't have to keep up with everything all the time - but it's important to step away from your own community for a bit to see what everyone else is doing.  

Makes sense, as my site is based on this very topic/genre and fandom. I'm going to the attraction in Watford in April, so I think I'll do this very thing and have a reviews sytem on my site.

Thanks @Matt!

JKR and the Potter series are not well recieved on christian forums/sites. Makes some what of an interesting read on a late night.... The Things they come out with!

The good news is that brands are now more aware of the importance in having a "community". 
The bad news is they are still learning. 😏
-------
The sharing of knowledge is a powerful thing.
These articles make a big difference to customers. 
Some of the topics, may not affect them directly but as a whole they do.
All these services (forum software companies), all talk the same. There's a strong focus on the software/service. They seldom go outside of this box. When you start talking about other areas that affect the success of communities, you start changing brand perception. People start seeing you as something other than a "forum software" company.
Please continue sharing articles outside the scope of your software.
I would love to see more advance topics such as SEO, marketing, retention, analytics, etc. I would also love to see real-world examples of how your customers are using specific apps such as Pages, Commerce, Calendar/Events, Downloads, etc. 
IPS is just the engine. You still need a driver. The more knowledgeable they are the more successful they become.
In turn, you help create loyal customers.

I didn't know Star Wars had witches in it! 😎
You're right though, it's funny how often I can't find my way to community forums.

Thanks so much for the lovely feedback.

Let me know if I can help you at all. 🙂 

Thanks so much for the lovely feedback.

Let me know if I can help you at all. 🙂 

Big Board admin/developer ... longtime lurker ... becoming bigger fan these days. I just have to post...
Email banner ads? Outstanding! (I haven't read about that one before.)
Lazy loading? SEO improvements? WTF PWA?
Holy COW!
Letter avatar - I thought was a great idea ... But now, SVG letter avatar? Yeeeesssss!! Letter avatars are a great way to personalize each account with little effort. Bravo 👏
I've been impressed with the 4 series and it keeps getting better.
I think I will finally take the plunge and purchase a license.
All this is just icing on the cake. What I love about IPS these days is that they are thinking of the admins....
GEOlocation free Social Login free ( At one point, I was paying close to $6000 a year for similar ser'vice) Built in Advertisement System free (Less work to develop in-house system) Store Commerce (Woocomerce alone cost over $200 with some basic extensions) amazon S3 Integration free Security Enhancements such as Google Authenticator free (previously paid for DUO) etc EXCELLENT JOB!!!!

My pick 'Post before registering'... 🙂

4.4 is only Beta. Not sure what to answer here yet. Please make 4.4 release first!

SEO and speed improvements. 

Post before register and lazy loading.

The e-mail banner ads. A simple feature, but considering the thousands notifications emails going out, such a huge potential for conversions. 

Very nice informative blog. Yep' forums do give an individual the power to log off from the main line and be whatever they want to be without the worry of "what the neighbours might think "  Hek' on IPS I'm a space girl from the planet of private pinks.

I need to come back to finish reading this, but good article.
First thing I do is remove the question asking for a member's gender which is for most a throwback to less enlightened times. It can be off-putting for new members, it is limited in responses, and for most communities very likely unjustified and unnecessary. Why not ask them for their sexuality and preferences too!

Top notch statement of facts regarding privacy and anonymity on forums vs social media platforms.  This is one of the issues that I promote to people when they consider joining; THEY are in control of what is and is not seen.
This is why I prefer forums to any other kind of social interaction between people; the opportunities of flexibility are almost endless with forums, whereas social media is rigid and contrived.
I believe that this is an important and relevant statement in a world where privacy almost often comes with a price, but not on forums; it's been there since day one and remains today - it's a shame that more people out there do not realise and appreciate this simple fact.
Great article and one which I will happily link to and promote from my own site. Thanks Matt, job done!

Ha, so true! There's a theory of 90-9-1 participation inequality in online communities that goes something like this:
90% of all users won't do anything (lurkers)
9% of all users contribute a little
1% of all users contribute most
That's the nature of human participation in online communities and ... That's okay.  It's okay if most users don't participate or contribute.  It doesn't mean they don't feel valued or a part of the community.  There's research that shows Lurkers still feel a bond to the community and enjoy reading, even if they never write anything themselves.  
In terms of asking users for help, there are some interesting insight that might be helpful. 
1. Users actually feel a greater connection to the community the more they participate. There was an article awhile by Matt on gamification and building a "loyalty program," and in a way, you should think of your users' interaction with your community as a loyalty program.  How are you cultivating stronger loyalty and progressing them on a value curve? 
2. Leadership sets the way.  I've discovered that people tend to be followers.  There are very few true Alphas.  We all follow rules for everything ... On the road, social etiquette, workplace professionalism, our life is ruled by rules! So it's hard to ask users to create something truly brand new.  What I do, especially on large projects, is do the first couple of items myself.  It not only shows them what to do, but it breaks the mental barrier of how to do it.  It's small but an important psychological opening.  
3. Don't over-ask.  I view my user's time and attention and clicks as a gift, not a privilege.  There are plenty of things in their lives that probably deserve more attention than my little community, so any attention they give to me is precious.  I'm always respectful of their time before I ask them to take on a large project.  
4. Nobody cares as much as you, but you can set the tone.  I laughed at your picture because it's so true.  In behavioral economics, there's the dilemma of the principal-agency problem.  Hiring a person to do the job is never as good as doing the job yourself, since they will never care as much as you.  To combat this, I spend a lot of my time talking about how to go about something, the best way of doing it, and the standards that we should have.  It helps establish a common framework of high standards.  I run a private club for my community's superusers.  And all we do is talk about best practices to activate the community ... We talk about how club leaders can more effectively run their clubs, how they can post differently for more engagement, etc.  It sets the tone for my community so that if they DO see a problem, they don't just ignore it, they have a way of getting it resolved -- and I thank them for taking the time to report or fix issues to reinforce the positive behavior.  
You're asking users to overcome their innate laziness and achieve a higher potential.  
You've noticed the problem.  How are you going to spend 2019 to overcoming it? 

We do set the container size in content, there was a minor issue where this wasn't occurring for images inserted via Giphy. We've fixed that now (although, not yet live on here). If you insert images from any other source for example, you'll see container sizes being set.

YAY!

Great think you can categorise them 

We should all race @Adlago in a community speedtest 🚗

What is this GIF button?

Great job guys: