Why is IPS Community Forum so restrictive?

[Mouth]

Wondering why https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/ is so restrictive for non-financial customers?
How does a potential customer get a good feel for the system and community, see and understand previously asked questions and issues, when so much of the forums are restricted and un-available?

 

[Joel R]

Wondering why https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/ is so restrictive for non-financial customers?
How does a potential customer get a good feel for the system and community, see and understand previously asked questions and issues, when so much of the forums are restricted and un-available?

IPS does not emphasize its peer support forum, and many features of the software are not actually usable in their peer support forum such as Gallery, Calendar, Blogs, and Calendar. They prefer their private ticket system. Sometimes I'd like to think the entire purpose of their support forums is to nudge clients into sending in support tickets.

They make good community software. They're not good at building a community of their own.

With that said, it has one of the lowest start-up costs for you to fully use. In addition to their demo, you can spin up an entire community using their Community in the Cloud for $25 for one month to fully test it out (which of course moves you into the Client membergroup, where you can see everything in the forums.)

 

[KimmiKat]

Wasn't IPS free at one time and the author said it would always be free, but decided to go the pay route?

 

[gogoblender]

Wasn't IPS free at one time and the author said it would always be free, but decided to go the pay route?

Wasn't that invisionfree? That was where we started our first forum before going paid with invision Power Board

I think they're zeta boards now...they're still free

http://s1.zetaboards.com/L_Anon/topic/5816587/6/



gogo

 

[Steve]

Yes the moderation of pre-sales is annoying. It took 3 days to get a reply and then my last message was never approved which ultimately lead me to not even give it consideration any longer. I did send in tickets with similar questions which may be why it was not approved? Who knows..,

Also contacting 3rd party devs for quotes was also a waiting game or no reply. *shrugs*

 

[Joeychgo]

How does a potential customer get a good feel for the system and community, see and understand previously asked questions and issues, when so much of the forums are restricted and un-available?

This is one of the reasons why when I was looking to convert all my sites from vBulletin, I didn't choose IPS and instead chose Xenforo..

 

[Jim McClain]

Ditto what Joey said. I gave IPS serious consideration for a long time. They fail to understand that having a decent product is only part of the sale. The other part, a very important part to me, is customer service - with even the slightest resemblance of a smile. What I got for answers seemed more dismissive, rude and an apparent lack of understanding (or was it caring) of certain niche needs.

That's not to say that XF was the complete opposite of that, but they were much easier to communicate with. On the other hand, if I judged only by friendliness and willingness to provide support, I'd be using WoltLab Suite right now. I think all forum software support staff could take lessons from them.

 

[we_are_borg]

That is the weakness of IPS communication good software but if communication fails you know you lose business. The problem is that companies look and see only the good what they do but don’t see the bad and act on that and make their company even better.

 

[Joeychgo]

Ditto what Joey said. I gave IPS serious consideration for a long time. They fail to understand that having a decent product is only part of the sale. The other part, a very important part to me, is customer service - with even the slightest resemblance of a smile. What I got for answers seemed more dismissive, rude and an apparent lack of understanding (or was it caring) of certain niche needs.

That's not to say that XF was the complete opposite of that, but they were much easier to communicate with. On the other hand, if I judged only by friendliness and willingness to provide support, I'd be using WoltLab Suite right now. I think all forum software support staff could take lessons from them.

Exactly. For me, friendliness was part of it, but not all of it. I also looked at custom coders and found there aren't very many and most are pretty busy. I also looked at cost, what addons were already available (and at what cost) as well as ease of use.

I chose XF over IPB because:

• Coming from vBulletin I felt my users would have an easier time making the transition as much of it is the same or very similar;
• The cost of IPB + addons I believed would be higher, upfront and annually;
• I had a much easier time getting information on the XF forums then IPB;
• XF seemed to have more addons;
• XFseemed to have more custom coders available.

 

[peteuk82]

Yes the moderation of pre-sales is annoying. It took 3 days to get a reply and then my last message was never approved which ultimately lead me to not even give it consideration any longer. I did send in tickets with similar questions which may be why it was not approved? Who knows..,

Also contacting 3rd party devs for quotes was also a waiting game or no reply. *shrugs*

Depending on what 3rd party devs you contacted ? many have left due to different reasons only few original 3rd party devs around now many new faces have turn up.

 

[Mouth]

• XF seemed to have more addons;
• XFseemed to have more custom coders available.

Quality is always more important than quantity. I think XF only has a handful of decent dev's that I would trust with my site.

 

[The Sandman]

Quality is always more important than quantity. I think XF only has a handful of decent dev's that I would trust with my site.

Which isn't enough... they're always ridiculously busy.

 

[Mouth]

Anyone with insight on why IPS themselves make it so restrictive?

 

[doubt]

Anyone with insight on why IPS themselves make it so restrictive?

Cannot see bugs.
For pirated software users is harder to get information about how to fix their software.

 

[nicksource]

I have used IPB for over 12 years and they have always been exceptional with their support for me.

 

[Pete]

I think the simple reason is that they're not trying to use it as a showcase but as a forum for their uses, and people who want to see what it can do can play with the demo instead.

 

[Woffie]

This is one of the reasons why when I was looking to convert all my sites from vBulletin, I didn't choose IPS and instead chose Xenforo..

Trying to get help at Xenforo is a slow and painful process. I gave them a year, they did not convince me to stay which is why I am back with IPS.

 

[The Sandman]

Trying to get help at Xenforo is a slow and painful process. I gave them a year, they did not convince me to stay which is why I am back with IPS.

Usually it's easy to get help with XenForo as long as:

• The issue isn't caused by an add-on or a conflict between add--ons.
• The XF staff and/or "principle members" agree that there is an issue that needs to be resolved.

 

[Omri Amos]

Ditto what Joey said. I gave IPS serious consideration for a long time. They fail to understand that having a decent product is only part of the sale. The other part, a very important part to me, is customer service - with even the slightest resemblance of a smile. What I got for answers seemed more dismissive, rude and an apparent lack of understanding (or was it caring) of certain niche needs.

Exactly.
I am a paying customer of IPS, I paid over a $1,000 on renewals, and even I get pretty rude answers sometimes.
I had a feature suggestion topic on their forum, they ignored it for a whole year even though other clients said that's a must-have feature (weekly mailing-list with popular topics, so users will come back to the forums).
Recently, after a whole year without any reply from them I started bumping the topic every few days.
The results? They ended up deleting my messages, giving me a warning, and I also got a PM threatening me that I will get banned.
They said that "my license does not give me granted access to the community forums", so I should "behave" or they will ban me.

IPS is a really good community software, but their customer service could be much better.
I also had similar bad experience (rude replies) with their support tickets system a while back.

 

[MarkFL]

...Recently, after a whole year without any reply from them I started bumping the topic every few days.
The results? They ended up deleting my messages, giving me a warning, and I also got a PM threatening me that I will get banned...

What is your policy regarding bumping on your own site?

I am assuming we're talking about posting simply to draw attention to a thread, to raise its profile without adding new content. I don't allow this on the site I help admin, but I would send a PM rather than a formal warning with a threat to ban, unless it had been ongoing and previous requests to stop had been ignored.