Matt

Great wrap to the end of the year! 
Thanks to all IPS Staffers for your talent and hard work, and our awesome, community/modding heroes.
This year has had a great positive feel within the IPS community, Not just a place for tech support but a fun, helpful community that it's a pleasure to visit every day. I've actually been ill since January 2017, still waiting for an operation, lost my job of 22 years end of September due to UK austerity cuts, and at times this place has really cheered me up throughout all the anxiety and stress.
Honestly, who could forget Joel's humour-soaked coverage during the 4.2 build and release? Brilliant!
Or the way the community got behind the Black Friday initiative? 
So here's wishing you all a well deserved, peaceful Christmas. 
☃️ ⛄️ ? ? ??
 

The best in development 4.x.x is the stable exponent growing.This is a factor that attracted me to the idea of 4.x.x.A long time I'm looking for solutions for speed loading site. Core IPS made magic in this. I have the pleasure of flying with this platform.
What do I expect - I expect a flight time in space soon

If the product weren't as good as it is, then I doubt most of us would use it instead of an alternative. So give yourselves a massive pat on the back for a job well done, enjoy the Christmas break, and have a happy and productive 2018

He is so snarky.

IPB 4.0 was innovative, IPB 4.1 was advance and I feel like 4.2 is my dream board and I cannot wait to see 4.3.... Hurry up...... just kidding...
Thank you so much for all you've done for us and continue to do for our community (IPB). 

Thanks for all your great work, guys! You are the greatest
Wish you and yours a great holiday-season and a happy new year! Looking forward to 2018 with IPS 

After putting up with Daniel's reverts and eating souse loaf, no wonder he's kind of snarky.   

He is so snarky.

The editor commentary is the best! 

I too really appreciate this blog post and the concerted efforts you have taken in introducing tools and links to relevant information help us with GDPR compliance in 4.2.7.  I chose the community software as it is top class and actively enhanced, has professional support and takes security seriously. Now it benefits from support for first rate privacy and data protection tools to the list.
 
GDPR is I believe a much needed step forward for privacy and the assertion that individuals own the rights to their data is increasingly vital in this age of social media and big data analysis. I hope and believe GDPR may well become the de facto world privacy standard and should not be feared but embraced to provide true transparency and protection to our community members in the best way.
One area as highlighted also by the @The Old Man that may still need to be addressed  in relation to the right to be informed and a subjects access requests. I am not concerned particularly about content such as posts, articles, blogs etc however member data, store customer data and to IP & device data is collected and is accessible and there needs to be a mechanism to provide this data in response to subject access requests in an easily readable electronic form.  This data is accessible via the ACP but it is not easily captured or exported e.g. in CSV or PDF, the only real method currently is screen capture which is laborious.
 
 

Really appreciate this article and the efforts in general to provide us with the necessary tools to help us with compliance in 4.2.7, and of course the point about trying to be helpful and supportive whilst not suggesting that you are pertaining to be lawyers or providing legal advice is well taken. As I've said before, it's a good potential selling point for software companies too. 
I much prefer this more helpful customer service stance which is much more supportive than when back when the cookie consent thing became a thing.
Whilst hopefully most of us won't ever have to formally demonstrate compliance with GDPR as part of an official review, ICO complaint or audit, it's just having the reassurance that our members know we take our responsibilities seriously, and the reassurance that also comes with knowing we have the tools available when needed to show general compliance or if necessary, for administrators to easily run off a log report detailing, not war and peace, but the basics of when a member's consent was provided, acceptance of terms was agreed (when they registered, accepted an updated privacy policy etc, or in fact removed consent). The data is there in the database, it's just a matter of being able to run a 'member GDPR' report, perhaps one that can be exported as a convenient pdf, txt, csv or .docx file. Perhaps even having a list of these tools and relevant AdminCP pages in a small but handy 'GDPR' section of the AdminCP menu would be helpful?
Great to also see a basic cookie acceptance tool built-in tied into the system and the ability to edit accompanying text as needed without giving admins the potential to get it wrong by pre-checking opt-ins. Not only removes the need to use third party cookie compliance software but also makes the whole experience more natural, streamlined and seemingly less disjointed to the end user/potential new member.
The boundaries of the Internet have never been straightforward! I'm in the UK, but I have multiple IPS licences for both UK and US based websites. When I say US based site, its more a case of having switched my original .UK monickered site to being more international themed .net site many years ago, and although the majority of its forum members are US based, we have a lesser proportion of international members (Finland, France, Germany, UK) and whilst I use a cloud-based VPS from a US based service provider for all of these sites, I know I still have to show regard to GDPR if we want to provide a service to people within European countries.
I bet hardly any UK based hobby admins are actually registered with the ICO if they don't own a full businesses or organisation already registered as a Data Controller, even though they are making the decision to store and process personal information. GDPR seems to remove that convenience loophole.
I recall someone saying that an IP address is not personal information back when the cookie debate was going on, but now GDPR clearly defines it as such.
Like you say, the UK's ICO website has some good info and guidance, although at times it can seem overwhelming.
If in doubt, get some legal advice is the key thing from a potential confused admin's perspective, look for online presentations or perhaps check out the business support section of your local council, business association, college, library to see if they are providing 1 or 2 hour free sessions in the area.

You can change the language for this, but if you wish to be GDPR compliant, you cannot pre-check that, It must be opt-in.

Hi, thanks for the reply.
I've modified the article to be a little clearer.
If you use our cloud hosting, then you are using a US service. However, if you collect data from EU citizens (as in allow them to register and use the site) then you may want to research what your responsibilities are there. You might choose to follow compliance just to be on the safe side. It's really not that hard and there's a good bit of data out there already.
Take a look at this article, for instance.

The texts are language strings you can change in your language settings. 
The button—well, it’s kind of the point of a cookie consent option to force an agreement from the user. 
 
Okay, it came with Beta 3. 

Hi, thanks for the reply.
I've modified the article to be a little clearer.
If you use our cloud hosting, then you are using a US service. However, if you collect data from EU citizens (as in allow them to register and use the site) then you may want to research what your responsibilities are there. You might choose to follow compliance just to be on the safe side. It's really not that hard and there's a good bit of data out there already.
Take a look at this article, for instance.

That's a really neat embedded podcast, we could use something like that.  

Thanks so much for sharing the show, @Matt! Really enjoyed the conversation.
Sorry for any downtime, @Joel R! We are on a ridiculously old VPS, and I have a new one ready to go, but the podcast and my day job have just been killing me lately, so I haven't been able to find time. I can't wait to get my sites switched over!
Patrick

I think we crashed their site

Wow, great site!

We use IPB since 2003, best tool for building community by far!
6 millions visitors each year, it's nice, great and robust.
https://forum.immigrer.com

Interesting podcast, excellent interview. 

how can I do replicate that Signup widget?  is that any specific widget from the marketplace?

As mentioned in the article, it ships with the 4.2 core software already. You find it in the front end “block manger” as System → Guest Signup Widget. 

We are a ver affectionate and warm community.
We send & receive kisses

Reactions are very positive feature! Thanks for them. Here is reactions with our emotions (all given zero-reputation, except plus and minus)