Como

Ah. So there is no permission purely for approving posts!? I would need to enable a permission which would allow access to all hidden posts, of all types - yes?

Hi @teraßyte. As I suspected. And it will be across all forums. But thank you for the suggestion. I can probably live with the new usergroup being able to approve other posts from established members too. I'll just need to frame it as a more formal, quasi-moderation role. Having said that, how do I enable the ability to approve posts for a new usergroup? I cannot locate the setting for existing moderators.

How do we control which usergroups can approve content in the approval queue? In particular, posts from new members? I can find no setting in System => Staff => Moderators, for example. I'd like to create a new usergroup where the only added permission is the ability to approve posts/threads from new members. If this would also force allowing the new usergroup to view/approve the entire approval queue, this might be acceptable. I am at a loss to find a setting which controls this for existing moderators, but it surely must exist.

I think this would help. And the ability to bar algorithm inputs from specific forums (solved topics at our Contact forum, for example); and the ability to weight the various inputs to suit each of our sites Having said that, since there is supposed to be an AI behind Community Experts, wouldn't it be ideal to utilize RLHF? I know little about AI, but this seems like a situation where human feedback to the AI from forum operators removing poorly chosen Experts would improve the system no end over time. I am sure it will depend upon how AI has been implemented by Invision - it may not be possible at all.

I think how it works now is correct. Disabling Experts might be only temporary. If we need to remove Expert usergroups (permanently), this can be done in additional to disabling the whole system. Although the logic of how this is implemented is a little iffy, the outcome, I think, is correct. What I think is a bug is when a new member, with nine posts, is elevated to Expert.

Yeah. As I understand it, it is a Cloud-only system.

Community => Forums => Community Experts To remove those already labelled as experts, you will also need to remove the usergroups (same page). It takes up to 24 hours for this to take effect and the label removed from member profiles.

In case you missed it: If you wish, I can send you the name of the account. But since it is no longer listed, it might not help. In any case, I've detailed (above) the likely trigger for the account being added as an expert.

No, that's not it. The removed new member has not logged in since the 18th May. I upgraded to v5 on 6th June.

Hi @Marc Thank for you taking the time to respond to each of my points and questions. Appreciated. Given that Community Experts works in an unpredictable manner, that its controls are lacking, and problems with reversibility,* I think Community Experts would be better disabled by default allowing owners/admin the opportunity to make decisions before it goes live. But I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Edit: *It actually appears to be reversible - I address this again below. Although I totally disabled the system yesterday, some of the entries (including the one I mentioned) have disappeared overnight (I did not remove them and they do not appear in the 'Blocked' list). But I know which account it is, and have managed to determine the likely cause for the account being labelled as an Expert. The account was created 4-April-2025. It has only nine posts. The first seven posts occurred between 4th and 6th April. In response to a bulk email concerning a policy change, the account holder returned to our community on 18th May to seek clarification by posting to our contact forum. They have not been back since. I marked the member's last post to our Contact forum (where he/she acknowledged our clarification) as the solution for the topic. This is the only forum where we use 'marked as solved' - we use it to indicate that the ticket it closed/resolved. Presumably, Community Expert uses 'solved' posts as part of the algorithm. Clearly, the algorithm needs a tweaking. I think community operators need to have control greater over how Community Expert systems. New members, with a few posts should not be labelled as experts based upon a single post being 'marked as solved'. We need to be able to operate control over weighting of the inputs and be able to disable selected input parameters for particular forums/areas from feeding into Expert system at all. I do appreciate that it will not be a simple matter to apply the kind of overhaul I have suggested, but I think it is needed. I did not even know about the Blocked list. It would help to have full instructions for the Community Expert system and the other systems which feed into it or are affected by it. So, if I understand you correctly, when we 'remove & block' a member, they are moved to the 'Blocked' list. And if we then remove them from the Blocked list, they are then eligible to be an Expert again - yes? It means unnecessary extra steps, but that works. I am a bit puzzled by this, As per my earlier comments, this member has disappeared from the list. I disabled the entire system yesterday - some entries disappeared overnight; others remain. I would have supposed that it was the result of an overnight chron job acting upon my disabling of the system, but not all the entries are gone. Edit: I've gone back and checked. Although I disabled Community Experts, I have just enabled it again (without saving) and I note that some (team) usergroups are still labelled as 'allowed groups'. So, it would seem that the functionality to remove whole usergroups (and for this to act retrospectively) already exists. Removing a usergroup from allowed groups does indeed remove the relevant members of the disallowed groups as Community Experts. But this only occurs during the next update (appears to be every 24 hours). Disabling Community Experts does not remove members from Allowed Groups. This is probably the correct behaviour, as disabling the system might be only temporary. And if Experts need to be removed en masse, the relevant usergroups can be removed from the allowed groups list (just allow for up to 24 hours for it to take effect). Yes, I'll do that. I do appreciate that this is a new system, and a quite radical one at that. It is bound to have unpredictable effects. I think it holds great promise, and I really would like to trial it. But the lack of control and its unpredictability means I cannot. And I/we (I surely cannot be the only one here) need more control over its input parameters. Thanks.

Hi @Marc It is a start, but I was looking for something more like a user guide. Having said that, it has answered at least one of my questions - I'll come to this in one moment. But first: Why was Community Expert enabled by default when I upgraded to v5 a few days ago (and for all usergroups)? Why is a new member with just a few posts under his/her belt labelled as a Community Expert? The blog post you linked indicates that I can 'block' a community expert. I wondered if the 'remove & block' option is permanent - the blog article clarifies this: yes, it is permanent. I wish to remove people from the list, but without this being a permanent bar. The new member should not be an 'expert' - not for now. But I have no reason to bar the member in the future. I also note that if I remove a usergroup from Expert eligibility, members of the usergroup are still labelled as an expert. The only option I have is to block them permanently. Our community makes a point of being a non-expert, peer-support community. And since it relates to health matters, the wish to avoid some members being labelled as 'experts'. The last thing we need to do is encourage know-it-alls playing doctor. However, we might still be able to use Community Expert. We would relabel 'Expert' to something else, and manually add suitable members to a single eligible usergroup of potential 'experts' ('community helpers', ' community guides', or whatever we might relabel them). But right now, I wish to start from a clean slate. How do I achieve this? And I suggest three changes: We can remove members from the list of experts without it being a permanent bar If we remove a usergroup as eligible Community Experts, those members should be removed from the list (unless they qualify via another usergroup) Community Expert should not be enabled by default, and across all usergroups no less.

Hi. Is there a full overview of Community Experts, associated systems, and manual/guide anywhere? Thanks.

Oh. I see. It is an external fontawesome source. Thank you, @teraßyte! But how would I, for example, use my site logo as the fallback icon?

Ah, a bug - I thought it was deprecated. Thank you for logging the bug and letting me know. 🙂

Hi all, I would like to change the default missing/fallback icon for forum buttons and the Topic widget (and possibly in other places too). I am a bit surprised there is no inbuilt way to change the default images. I have tried to use CSS, but I do not know how to achieve this when variables are involved. The HTML for the Topics feed: .ipsData__image > i::before { content: var(--i-data--fallback-icon, "\f1c5"); }I can change the forum buttons image, but I need to do this for each forum. Further, although the image takes, the forum buttons disappear - this is not what I trying to achieve. I just wish to replace the icon. .fa-ips::before { content: var(--icon, "\f1c5"); }Thanks.

Hi all. I see that with v5, predictive text does take account of context. In v4.x, predictive text would prioritize users who had already posted to the topic. This made total sense. From a UX perspective, it is much more efficient and effective. I had noted that this priority was never in place with PMs. I was hoping that it might have been extended from topics to there. Unfortunately, the opposite has occurred. Is there any chance that @mention predictive text prioritization for topic contributors will return? This (backwards) change makes it more likely that members (and particularly, new members) will not bother using @mentions at all.

Ah - good to know. I should have expected that you had it covered! 🙂 Thanks.

Hi. I've just upgraded to v5 and an Admin who regularly uses a phone to access my website informs me that there is no Reported Content icon in plain view. So she now finds that she must keep checking her profile menu. I'm primarily a PC user, so I did not even notice its removal. I know there is some talk of adding functionality to edit the footer menu. I suggest that it would be helpful to have the option of adding an editable mobile user menu in the header too (similar to desktop view). In the meantime, does anyone have any suggestions for I might add the Report flag icon to the mobile header? I might have considered adding it to the mobile footer menu, but I've already added an additional icon there (for a total of six) and it is crowded enough already. Thanks.

v5 Cloud Test Forum Hi all. I wish to change the button text, 'Start New Topic' on a Contact Us forum. I have managed to achieve this using CSS - it is clunky, but seems to work on the three browsers I've tested. I could not get the button to resize to the new text string, so had to resort to using font-size. And I could not use display:none instead of visibility:hidden because the width of the button collapses. I tried a few things, but could not get the button to resize to fit the replacement text string. [data-pageid="16"] ul.ipsButtons.ipsButtons--main.i-margin-block_block li a.ipsButton.ipsButton--primary span { visibility: hidden; position: relative; bottom: 2px; font-size: 0.75rem; } [data-pageid="16"] ul.ipsButtons.ipsButtons--main.i-margin-block_block li a.ipsButton.ipsButton--primary span:after { visibility: visible; position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; content: "New Ticket"; font-size: 1rem !important; }The above would be OK, but I would need to change multiple text strings to maintain consistency, including two additional strings for the first 'Ticket' notice, several more in the text editor, and probably others too. That's getting way too messy. Is there a better way of going about this? I expect this is achievable and more reliable using JS, but I would run into the same problem of needing to target multiple text strings with multiple alternative strings. Neither do I expect the use of hooks to be practicable in this situation. Is there a simpler, better approach I am missing? If not, I expect will not bother with this. It would be really nice if there was way to add a condition to language translations.

Has any consideration been given to the deletion of usernames from @mentions and quote headers when closing accounts and the member wishes their content anonymized and marked as being by 'Guest'? I understand that there might be some technical hurdles to this, but I am not even sure if their retention is GDPR-compliant given that usernames are considered PII. 'Technical barriers' are probably a legitimate defense for these omissions. But how much of a technical barrier are they? And if the barrier is low, is this a legal/legitimate defense for their non-inclusion? I think there is a grey area here. At least in the mind of the individual wishing to close their account and anonymize their content.* Retaining usernames in @mentions and quote headers increases the pressure to remove actual content to remove instances of their username. There can be legitimate and compelling reasons for all instances of a username to be deleted. Attempting to do this for plain text mentions surely would be more difficult and server intensive, prone to false positives, and surely onerous. However, there would be potential ways of achieving this programmatically for @mentions and in quote headers. And there is another problem. When an account is deleted, the username becomes available for re-registration. This will give the appearance of old @mentions and the username appearing in headers as referring to the new member. This is far from ideal. There is a third-party app which automatically adds deleted usernames to the username registration block list, but that might not be GDPR compliant, as it is the deliberate retention of PII. Tricky, innit. Any thoughts?

I did not check that. I'm away from the desktop now - and it is late here - I will check tomorrow. Thanks.

Hmmm. I think it might be timeout issue. I just tried to replace the CSS file, but it would not save. So, instead, I tried 'revert', it brought back up the missing CSS and I was then able to save. If this is a timeout problem, there is no indication/warning of this. It is confusing.

Hi all, I'm using a test cloud installation to get a better handle of v5 before we upgrade. But I am puzzled by the Theme Editor. I have been unable to determine the trigger. But sometimes, when changing the theme settings, I lose the whole CSS file. I am not editing the CSS file at the time. And even if had edited the file - and had forgotten - it does not go back to the last saved version. Rather, the whole CSS file is wiped out. Off and on, I have been working on the CSS file (in the front-end Theme Editor) over the past week. The loss of the CSS file has occurred a few times, but only when I have been adjusting the theme via its inbuilt systems. I have tried to reproduce the effect, but to avail. Any ideas? Am I missing something?

Hi all. An Invision member PM'd me with a message and suggested I share it and a couple of images here. I am unsure if they are of any help - but they do indicate an intermittent bug, which I know are sometimes a bear to pin down. Anyway, in case it is...

Ah. It was never described as a bug earlier in this thread - rather, it seemed like a design decision. I can live with it being 'a bug to be fixed'. :)