Discussion

Hello, my name is banata, im an administrator of small forum, been using IPS since 2012, glad to be here,

What strategies do you think we can implement to improve how we communicate? Any particular tools or approaches you find effective?

Okay. I just want to take a moment to say that IPS has really upped their video walkthroughs from upbeat electronic music to poetic rhyming to describe new features. So, what's new in their new Page Builder, something that we've been expecting for awhile with v5? New widget designs: grid, featured, wallpaper, rows (table), minimal, minimal grid, and carousel that works with all of the other options. New widget areas: allows stacking or side-by-side widgets. Are you planning on overhauling any pages? Are you looking to build new pages with these tools?

I recently stumbled upon a fascinating article from The Washington Post titled "Pearls Before Breakfast." It’s about this intriguing experiment where Joshua Bell, one of the world's greatest violinists, played incognito in a DC Metro station during rush hour. Days before, he had filled the house at Boston's Symphony Hall, where seats were sold for $100. You’d think a world-class musician performing an intricate Bach piece on a $3.5 million Stradivarius would draw a huge crowd, right? Wrong. Hardly anyone stopped to listen. This experiment got me thinking about the age-old debate: context vs. content. In the world of online communities, we often emphasize the importa…

In light of IPS new stance on tagging in v5, I wanted to ask other forum admins about their experiences with open versus closed tagging systems. Open System: Pros: Anyone can create tags, which could capture more nuanced topics. Cons: It can get messy quick, with duplicate or irrelevant tags everywhere. Closed System: Pros: It's tidy, with a controlled set of tags that keeps things organized. Cons: Might be too restrictive and not cover all relevant topics, potentially stifling discussion. Have you found one system clearly better than the other in managing community content? How do you handle the challenges that come with yo…

IPS was not kidding when they titled their blog as "Tagging Reinvented." These aren't the standard tag features that everyone else is accustomed to (colors, defined prefixes, font awesome). Instead, we got a vision statement by IPS on taxonomy: a global closed tag system for the entire community. No more open tags. No more tags defined per node. Each tag is predefined by the admin, available for the entire community, and displayed in a beautiful dedicated page per tag with its own banner image, description, featured content, and a consolidation of content from the entire community presented in a unified manner. Other highlights: Tag pages can be us…

I was reflecting in the new Features Page / Our Picks page that IPS is refreshing for v5, and I realized that we actually had multiple ways to show our content: - displaying content by categorization (the traditional forum boards > subboards) - displaying content by chronology (Activity Streams) - displaying content by popularity (Leaderboard) - displaying content by manual selection (Featured / Our Picks page) IPS gives you 4 (!) different ways of displaying content. In contrast, social media gives you one method - a feed, which usually prioritizes engagement (likes, views, comments, shares, etc). One of the trending ideas, espoused by peo…

IPS briefly talked about Artificial Intelligence (AI) in recent months, but this is the first full confirmation of how IPS plans to integrate AI features into the community, with features already planned for v5. This aligns with their prior perspective that they don't plan to bring AI into any user-facing interactions. No direct conversing with AI chatbots. However, IPS does believe AI can provide benefit in the following areas: "We are using AI in v5, but in terms of algorithms and models (spam analysis, topic summaries, trending content, etc)." https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/478323-artificial-intelligence-ai-gpt-invision-community/?do=findC…

I giggled when I came across the term "Pages page" in the Invision client forums about a week ago. It sounds so absurd, but I knew exactly what they were saying! IPS has very precise terms for certain things. What are some other things that only a "real" IPS client would know? Do you know ... Nexus? What about ... Dynamics??

Would you go a month without visiting your own forum? A year?

This is an interesting question. Do you consider the IPS website (that includes the client forum community) to be a "model" website for clients? Is it a model website for your community? IPS does some "strange" things. The most notable example that periodically pops up from new clients is how to reproduce their company blog on Blogs app. For any real IPS client, we all know the company blog runs on a Pages database (which is the proper method within Invision to create and publish a series of news), but IPS also offers the Blogs app! Which is kind of confusing! Invision's company blog doesn't run on Blogs!

As title says.

IPS jokingly added that Invision Community v5 will come with a voucher for a 'third thumb.' After watching the Youtube video, I am firmly convinced that I need this new appendage - like NOW - to dramatically improve my life.

Inspired by this post here, where Q&A forums are going away in Invision Community v5 https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/478308-qa-forums-are-going-away/ Did you ever actually use the Question and Answer layout? It includes voting, suggestions, and ratings

Which is like a public Beta. But Alpha 🤔 (If anything, I think this goes to show that development really is more of a continuum, rather than distinct milestones.) One thing that is different this cycle is they'll be inviting users to test alpha on the cloud instance. Downloadable versions will be coming soon Tagging is to be announced soon, which should be interesting. IPS has not fundamentally touched its tagging system over the entire 4.0 generation, so it'll be interesting to see what kind of philosophical changes they bring to the system. The big outstanding question is of course the widget and page builder, which Alpha testers should be able …

Have you ever started watching a movie, paused it halfway through, and felt an itch to finish it later? Or left a task incomplete and couldn’t get it out of your head until you finally wrapped it up? The Zeigarnik Effect essentially says that people remember unfinished tasks better than completed ones. This can be a powerful tool for us to keep our users engaged and coming back. Here are a few ways we can leverage this in our communities and marketing: Unfinished Thoughts: Have you tried posting content that leaves a question or a thought incomplete? It could be something like a cliffhanger in a blog post or an open-ended question in a forum d…

Back in colonial India, the British government was worried about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi. To tackle this, they offered a bounty for every dead cobra. At first, it seemed like a brilliant idea—people started killing cobras and bringing them in for the reward. But then, some clever folks realized they could breed cobras and kill them to claim the bounty. When the government caught wind of this, they scrapped the program. The breeders, now stuck with useless cobras, released them into the wild, making the original problem even worse. This is a classic example of an unintended negative consequence—a well-meaning solution backfiring spectacularly. …

One of the big discussions on the IPS client forums is the new editor and the removal of the source editor. One interesting suggestion is to offer 2 different editors. A basic one for members, and a full editor with source code capability for admins. How often do you, as an admin, use source code? How much more of a power user are you than your members?

"Everything in society can feel geared toward optimization – whether that’s standardized testing or artificial intelligence algorithms. We’re taught to know what outcome you want to achieve, and find the path towards getting there. Kenneth Stanley, a former OpenAI researcher and co-founder of a new social media platform called Maven, has been preaching for years that this method of thinking is counterproductive, if not outright harmful. Instead of prioritizing objectives, Stanley says we should be prioritizing serendipity." https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/26/how-mavens-ai-run-serendipity-network-can-make-social-media-interesting-again/

Acid bath for human thinking. Multitasking is mostly a myth. Who has 47 seconds to actually spend time on a single task?? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/28/opinion/artificial-intelligence-thinking-minds-concentration.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Sent by Case Newton of Platformer, a popular technology newsletter:

Navigating the world of online forums can sometimes feel like trying to start a conversation at a busy café – everyone's there, but how do you get them talking, especially the newcomers? Opening up and building relationships with total internet strangers can be a challenge. So, what’s your secret sauce? What open-ended questions do you use to break the ice and kickstart genuine conversations? Have you found certain types of questions that work like a charm in getting users to open up? Maybe something fun or thought-provoking, or even a general Chit Chat Zone? How do you create a welcoming atmosphere that encourages users, especially new ones, to share their …

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant" – this adage often surfaces in debates about handling extremist content on large social platforms. The idea is that exposing such content to public scrutiny, rather than suppressing it, could be a more effective way to combat harmful ideologies. But is this approach truly effective, or does it risk giving these dangerous views a broader audience and more influence? Do you think exposing extremist content to the light of public discussion is an effective way to counter it, or does it inadvertently amplify harmful messages? How can online communities strike the right balance between open discourse and preventing the spread o…