Matt

More information will be made available about our position with regards to the GDPR in the next day or so and a few more provisions are being added to the software (this will be detailed more in the upcoming post) by the implementation deadline. Beyond that, I'd ask that you slow the roll so-to-speak on personal interpretations and armchair legalese for there is no need to get worked up into a frenzy. Much like Y2K when everyone thought the world was going to end, the power grid was going to shut down and we'd be left with a smoking pile of circuitry ashes - I assure you, May 26th will be uneventful and we will all carry on as normal - just with some additional data processing safeguards. The regulations will be further interpreted, tested via case law and the world (including IPS) will adapt accordingly. In the interim, please relax and wait for our next update this week. It should address the remaining concerns we've interpreted and determined to be valid. 
As an aside, the software does not prevent you from controlling content. It is not our position nor that of the numerous experts we've consulted with that contributed content to a public community-centric entity constitutes personal information in accordance with the GDPR. If you believe otherwise, the software allows you to delete that content upon receipt of a right to erasure request from a data subject. You can also include in your terms and conditions (which you can require your users to accept) verbiage that addresses copyright, if you so desire. All of this is your decision based on your (and ideally, your legal expert's) individual interpretation of applicable laws - we are just providing baseline tools based on our interpretation. 
Please stay tuned while we further address your GDPR concerns such as obtaining technical support, data portability, etc. 

I personally do not feel that public posts or personal messages constitute 'personal data'. I see that more like email address, age, address, credit card details, etc.

Yes, typo fixed. I meant explicit but my brain substituted the word incorrectly. The intention was always explicit consent as the surrounding text illustrated.
If you're more comfortable removing IP addresses from content data, then get in touch with support and we'll show you the queries to run on your database (assuming you make back-ups, and are comfortable with admin tasks like that, etc, etc).

Thanks for having our backs with this GDPRoller coaster ride. Much love.

Great follow up GDPR post by Matt, thank you. 
At the end of the day, do no evil! When you make a decision, don't be evil. Do the right thing, for the right reasons and with the best of intentions, just like we all do with many things In life. Why not reset your list and give everyone the opportunity to opt-in afresh. Your members will be reassured if they see you taking a responsible review and stance because you collect, process and store their data and you're being open about what you do and won't do with their personal information.  
As a responsible and well-meaning administrator, why would you worry or be unduly concerned about being seen to be open and transparent in your stance, by contacting your existing members who are currently opted-in (and/or putting a reminder on your site), that they are currently considered opted-in but that your inviting them to remain so and/or that you're resetting everyone's preferences to opted-out by default on a certain date. (You think they'll want to because of the benefits and service improvements that will be of interest to them, but you respect their decision and choice either way). 
Invite them to continue to receive email notifications (called transaction emails that are mostly automated and sent in response to an action) but not about every single little thing (after all you spent 20 minutes reviewing the current default notifications and have reduced them by resetting them to minimal or none for all existing and new members, because you want them to reach the mythical Inbox Zero and you too care about the planet, but this is how you can quickly review and enable/disable them at any time). 
If you've ever used a service like, ahem, Sparkpost, in the past (there are other email providers available), remember they will likely have a suppression list from members who have previously declined emails or bounced due to policy, so ideally that list should be replicated in IPS if you can, if you are keeping your current opted in member list and not restarting afresh, as sensible best practice (because it's the right thing to do, and you're not evil!). In fact, they remind you to import it from your old provider, if you have one, when you join.
We're all getting a deluge of emails these days from companies who are either resetting on or before GDPR day, inviting us to stay opted-in or to opt-in again. I'd always value a company or service provider more who goes the extra mile, doesn't brow beat me, and is open.
It's nice to be able to reset the switch and for a lot of companies, restrict your inbox and take some control back.

Once an account is deleted, the IP address then becomes associated with the Guest account and not user account Fred. As that is an anonymous account the IP is no longer Personally Identifiable Information and is therefore GDPR no longer applies to it.
 

Sorry, could you also clarify what would be considered a soft opt-in?
For the first 2 years of my forum running I had opt-in set by default.  Would be nice if I could include these in my bulk mail if that is considered soft opt-in
 

On older versions the opt-in box was prechecked so you can consider that "soft" since it was shown to them before signing up. You do not need to reconfirm permission in that case and you are good to continue to email them. On newer versions of Invision Community that box is not prechecked.

Great.  This is a huge weight off my mind.  Thank you all for taking the time to write this guide

Ah ok I see where that could be confusing. What Matt was referring to was a nice feature where, if you change some of your policy or terms text, you can optionally make a user re-read that text and click "agree" the next time they visit your site. It doesn't impact the opt-in statuses of things like bulk email, follow notifications, and such.

It is. You can replace Wordpress with Invision Community.
However, for people already using Wordpress, this is a huge ask. Some have invested a lot of time and money into their websites and may be reluctant to change immediately. 
This video really demonstrates the power of Pages, not how you should stick with Wordpress. You can use these blocks on any website that allows HTML blocks.

I think it's important to understand that really GDPR is about protecting and using data responsibly. My impression is that there isn't a draconian organisation ready to swoop and punish people who are acting responsibly.

I certainly wouldn't fear it. Just review the information out there. Make some notes. Use 4.2.7 to help with your compliance checks.
A great resource is the ICO website. It has some great tips about want to put in a privacy policy - check it out here.
I can't give out "legal" advice here because I am not an expert, but I do want to help where I can.

It will require some custom programming, but the REST API can be used for this.
https://invisioncommunity.com/developers/rest-api?endpoint=core/search/GETindex

I'm looking for a way to embed the community search in my Wordpress search or in the search result page in Wordpress. Do you have a hint for me?

Didn't know that you can embed blocks on any site, very cool. 

Funnily enough, I just set up a Wordpress site for one of my colleagues on a subdomain of ours and hadn't given any thought as to how to cross-promote. Guess what's going to happen next? ?

A massive thumbs up to all the above.

Regarding Rikki - yes! I might have to edit him in. He didn't respond when I sent out the message for this blog entry so didn't include him, but he's a dead ringer for Ron Livingston.

Charles:

PIVOT!

funny idea ?  
Marc look-alike Roman Atwood

Clearly IPS is the hottest cast to never hit the Hollywood Reporter.
Also, I dont think we can take @Matt sertiously ever again while he wears a Krispy Kreme hat (their donuts are delicious though).  
 

I respectfully disagree. A very common marketing modal is to open up a free Facebook group, then plug your premium service delivered into a closed Facebook group via a PayPal link.

Invision Community can do this with better integration and more granular permissions.

I respectfully disagree. A very common marketing modal is to open up a free Facebook group, then plug your premium service delivered into a closed Facebook group via a PayPal link.

Invision Community can do this with better integration and more granular permissions.