Forums

One of the overarching goals for any community leader is to shine a bright light on your members. Their contributions should be publicly recognized. Now with Invision Community’s new Achievements system... you can! Achievements is Invision Community’s native gamification system baked into our latest update, 4.6. We’ve dreamed up innovative actions for community leaders to publicly recognize members who show up and participate in meaningful ways. Award Points and badges based on conditional Rules! Here’s what you need to know... Points Our Achievements Points system keeps a running tally of Points. Members may earn Points in a multitude of ways. Essentially, it’s achieved by participating in the community. Create a topic? Points! Post a reply? Points! Follow another member? Nothing. Just kidding… Points!!! This is done through creating Rules. Rules Rules are actionable processes set up in the admin panel. Here are what members can earn Points for: When a... Member joins a club Reaction is given New poll is created User follows a content item Review is posted Member logs in for the first time that day New club is created Content item/comment is promoted or featured Comment/reply is posted User follows a forum, blog, gallery, category etc User votes on a poll User is followed New content item is posted Post is marked as best answer There are also corresponding When/Then Rules for each item listed above. When this action happens, then this subsequent action happens. Example: when a member posts 10 times, then this Badge is awarded. Badges Community leaders can also create specific Rules when deciding what actions earn Badges. For example, reward your members with a Badge for visiting your community for 20 days. Once a member reaches 20 visits or more over 20 days, the Achievements system will automatically award them a ‘20 Visits’ Badge you’ve previously created. Ranks In 4.6, we’ve completely revamped our Ranks system to communicate with Achievements. Achievements’ Ranks system will replace our previous Ranks system* Set up different Ranks based on how many Points a member earns. Ranks display a members’ perceived value to the community. The higher a members’ Rank, the greater their influence because the more they’ve participated. Ranks are currently for prestige at the moment. Here's our example for a pretend Coconut community: There’s a lot of information to absorb here, but if there’s anything to take away from this blog post it’s this: empower your contributing members with Achievements and watch your community grow. It creates an immersive and elevated experience for your die-hards. And hey, who doesn’t love to earn? When 4.6 and Achievements is officially released for all, we’ll hold a live Q&A event for you to join and ask any questions you may have. Props? Concerns? Comments? Questions? We’d love for you to sound off in the comments! Not only because we want to hear from you, but because it’ll earn you some sweet, sweet Points, too! View the full article

Hi Pete,  I discovered an issue with your free "Back to Top" plugin in IPS Marketplace. When logged it the plugin is causing an issue where you need to double click on links most of the time. According to this site CSS can cause this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32371431/hover-on-ios-mobile-devices-turns-into-double-touch-instead-of-hover Is there any way to fix this issue?

Community sharing is community caring. Take it from me: prominently curating your members’ content will profoundly accelerate growth. It’s also pretty darn fun. I’ve run my company, BreatheHeavy, since 2004. While many online businesses shuttered because of social media’s looming presence, mine thrived because of the community. Full disclosure? I had no idea creating a community back in 2004 would become the not-so-secret ingredient to staying alive. Ahh, if only I knew then what I know now. Hindsight is 2020 (that number gives me anxiety, am I right?), but I never fully understood or appreciated how immensely game-changing community building is. Related: The Importance of Moderation, err... Community Guidance (New Video!) In the past, I focused my efforts on writing news articles (in Wordpress) while my Invision Community community ran rampant. I felt my presence needed to take center stage. That cast a shadow on my community and thus my members. I unintentionally muted their voices by exclusively promoting mine. That was a colossal mistake, but the greatest learning lesson. One year ago, I decided to pivot and shift all my energy towards fostering my community; the results were astounding! I saw more than a 100% increase in unique visits compared to the previous year. The most powerful change I made was shining a light on the content my members created. My website went from being a news site to a community. I constructed a new homepage that featured topics created by myself AND my members. This not only manifested a dynamic, constantly varied homepage, but also incentivized members to post thought-provoking and engaging topics in the hopes their content gets featured. In my community, topics that are featured on the homepage are considerably more viewed and commented on than topics that aren’t. I suspect you’d find similar results. Here’s how I set up my new homepage: I utilized Invision Community’s custom blocks feature. It’s available with the Pages application. I created a new block plugin, selected “topic feed” from the list, then set the permissions in the Feed Configuration tab to only show “featured” topics from members. I also used @opentype's SuperTopics plugin to give a more-polished look. Might sound a bit complex, but it’s rather intuitive. Community leaders can “feature” members’ content by selecting their topic and in the moderation panel, tap “Feature.” Our Picks “Featuring” content isn’t the only powerful tool Invision Community has baked into its software to highlight your members’ content. We’ve also carefully crafted a promotion option to manually select content that’s included on the “Our Picks” page and corresponding block. This is another powerful method to curate community content. We created a guide on how to set up promotion/our picks. With great power comes great responsibility The ability to “feature” content is a privilege only moderators in your community should have access to – at least in the beginning. Avoid giving any member the ability to freely feature their own content onto the homepage - instead, focus on manually curating the content. Be selective and choose what topics you want to represent your community. By creating a standard, your homepage won’t feature any and all content. Instead, it’ll display items you believe will pack the greatest punch. Featuring your members' content visibly shows your desire to embrace your community. It’s one thing to comment on members’ topics, it’s another to feature and promote them for all to see. That’s the secret sauce of curation. Do you agree? Disagree? Have any suggestions? Curate content in your own community? How many questions can I ask in a row? Drop us a line in the comments below! View the full article

Community sharing is community caring. Take it from me: prominently curating your members’ content will profoundly accelerate growth. It’s also pretty darn fun. I’ve run my company, BreatheHeavy, since 2004. While many online businesses shuttered because of social media’s looming presence, mine thrived because of the community. Full disclosure? I had no idea creating a community back in 2004 would become the not-so-secret ingredient to staying alive. Ahh, if only I knew then what I know now. Hindsight is 20/20 (that number gives me anxiety, am I right?), but I never fully understood or appreciated how immensely game-changing community building is. Related: The Importance of Moderation, err... Community Guidance (New Video!) In the past, I focused my efforts on writing news articles (in Wordpress) while my Invision Community community ran rampant. I felt my presence needed to take center stage. That cast a shadow on my community and thus my members. I unintentionally muted their voices by exclusively promoting mine. That was a colossal mistake, but the greatest learning lesson. One year ago, I decided to pivot and shift all my energy towards fostering my community; the results were astounding! I saw more than a 100% increase in unique visits compared to the previous year. The most powerful change I made was shining a light on the content my members created. My website went from being a news site to a community. I constructed a new homepage that featured topics created by myself AND my members. This not only manifested a dynamic, constantly varied homepage, but also incentivized members to post thought-provoking and engaging topics in the hopes their content gets featured. In my community, topics that are featured on the homepage are considerably more viewed and commented on than topics that aren’t. I suspect you’d find similar results. Here’s how I set up my new homepage: I utilized Invision Community’s custom blocks feature. It’s available with the Pages application. I created a new block plugin, selected “topic feed” from the list, then set the permissions in the Feed Configuration tab to only show “featured” topics from members. I also used @opentype's SuperTopics plugin to give a more-polished look. Might sound a bit complex, but it’s rather intuitive. Community leaders can “feature” members’ content by selecting their topic and in the moderation panel, tap “Feature.” Our Picks “Featuring” content isn’t the only powerful tool Invision Community has baked into its software to highlight your members’ content. We’ve also carefully crafted a promotion option to manually select content that’s included on the “Our Picks” page and corresponding block. This is another powerful method to curate community content. We created a guide on how to set up promotion/our picks. With great power comes great responsibility The ability to “feature” content is a privilege only moderators in your community should have access to – at least in the beginning. Avoid giving any member the ability to freely feature their own content onto the homepage - instead, focus on manually curating the content. Be selective and choose what topics you want to represent your community. By creating a standard, your homepage won’t feature any and all content. Instead, it’ll display items you believe will pack the greatest punch. Featuring your members' content visibly shows your desire to embrace your community. It’s one thing to comment on members’ topics, it’s another to feature and promote them for all to see. That’s the secret sauce of curation. Do you agree? Disagree? Have any suggestions? Curate content in your own community? How many questions can I ask in a row? Drop us a line in the comments below! View the full article

Moderation feels a bit like an outdated term created pre-social media, but it stuck. We’d like to re-frame your thinking in terms of guiding your community versus moderating it. Guidance is an essential component to any thriving community because it creates structure and boundaries for the community. Oftentimes, people think community guidance is about restriction, but in reality it allows your community to express itself in a healthy way. All communities run into issues unless there are clear guidelines laid out for all members. It only takes a couple of toxic trolls to bring down an entire community of thousands of members. As a community leader, it's important to find the balance between allowing freedom of speech and restricting what people can and can't say. An Internet troll tends to want to see what they can get away with and push the boundaries to the brink. They’ll claim that they are not allowed to speak their mind, but I want to stress the importance this: Freedom of speech has some limitations. For instance, you can't just shout ‘FIRE!’ in a crowded room because you believe you have the right to freedom of speech (though some would argue you can, which is why guidance is imperative). There are certain rules that everyone needs to follow in order for an online community to function. The first thing you'll want to do when guiding your community is... to create community guidelines. These guidelines must be visible and easy to access. There, you can lay out all the nitty-gritty rules you want, but essentially it should boil down to this: Be kind. Treat people with respect when posting and remember that there’s a person behind the user name. It's important not to hide behind anonymity just because you can. Being a part of the community means that all members must abide by these guidelines. Now what happens if someone "breaks the rules” or ignores these guidelines? As your community’s leader how do you proceed? You do so by creating actionable rules that can adversely affect a member’s standing in your community if they break them. I know that sounds kind of threatening, but it's important to establish to your community that you're there for them and that your priority is to hear them out, but at the same time you must take action to keep the peace. Invision Community has automatic moderation tools and a warning system section baked into the software. Below is a snapshot of Invision Community's administration panel where community leaders may set up custom automatic moderation rules: Tap here for more specific information on how to implement community guidance/moderation to your community. One important component to these rules is that you enforce them across-the-board to all members and do so consistently. If you leave the door open for one member and not another, it's going to create an unwanted hierarchy and instigate chaos. One of the best ways to be consistent is by walking the walk. Show your community how you want them to post by posting and contributing that way yourself. What that does is it sets a visible precedent. From there, you'll begin to notice other community members contributing in a way that is similar to you (lead by example). This is a great opportunity to consider them to join a new moderators team. Whether they are paid moderators or are volunteering their time, you still want them to be mini leaders inside your community. It's important that you are a positive role model for them. Watch the video up top, then drop us a line in the comments! And hey, while I've got you... check out what our own community has to say about moderation (aka community guidance 😉). Remember, guiding your community starts from the top (a.k.a. you!). Now get out there and moder-... guide! Stay tuned for more Invision Community video content coming soon! View the full article