Price hike, no more ticket support - enough signals from Invision

[KimmiKat]

Just the other day one of the boards I'm (That uses InvisisionBoard) on that deals with ASL (Sign Language) stuff needed support for an issue and discovered it was not there anymore. Now they're thinking of moving over to Freakbook (yuck!) or just use their Discord server. Many say they won't do FB and suggested another platform. I made a suggestion to contact Invision and see if they can work with them, then if they nowhere, then think of another platform, but avoid FB at all costs.

Was totally unaware of the price increase. Certainly didn't get an email informing us.

My licence was an old one with premium support, yet they seem to have removed that which is a bit unfair.

 

[Deleted member 3691]

Support is still there. I know because I was working it last week. Managed some over the forums and some over tickets that other support staff had escalated from the forum.

We removed premium support because it’s not something we offer anymore. Our standard support should be more than fine.

 

[FTL]

We removed premium support because it’s not something we offer anymore. Our standard support should be more than fine.

So, now that I've renewed my license, if I have a confidential query (eg personal details) that shouldn't be in the public support forum, how do I ask it confidentially?

Please note that I don't have any queries at the moment though, would just like to know how it works.

 

[Deleted member 3691]

Just briefly explain the problem, if you need to discuss personal details just mention that in the topic and we'll move it to a private ticket.

This does happen from time to time.

 

[Mesca]

Hi all,
I am using Invision community now and I can understand why the forum is the priority.
As an administrator of forum, I can say that (and I imagine everyone here has the same experience) :
- when members send an email instead of going to the public forum, it is very time consuming to answer the same thing again and again.
And we enter into endless arguments sometimes. As it is private, the members seem to lose control of what they could say or could not. And we are sometimes not happy to advance in their request, because they have gone too far. It is not good for the request that could be legitimate.
- if it is a bug or a question, the answer could be profitable for everyone.
And sometimes member find solution or way to do the same thing otherwise we didn't imagine.

Even if you had ticket instead of a forum, if you are not a paying customer, I imagine that your bug :
- is less priority than a paying customer
- could be caused by your configuration or old license.

I saw Matt proposed a solution for private matters : you just have to ask for moving it to private.

 

[whitetigergrowl]

We are seeing a good number of self hosted customers switching to our cloud plans.

In terms of sales trends, the downloadable version continues to decline, while our hosted communities continue to increase.

People just don't want to download a bunch of files and get all hot and nerdy with them anymore.

I know that you get can a decent VPS and install Redis, ES, etc yourself and then optimise it with say a MySQL variant that scales better but the number of people who know how to do this is shrinking, and the number of people who know how to do this and WANT to do it is shrinking faster.

But is it a correlation? I know I haven't renewed the cost of my license. It's now just too cost prohibitive. I have no incentive to. The cloud version is even worse. There is no economic upside or value. I suspect that will eventually plateau then decline too. Most people won't spend $50 a month just to run a hobby page with 10 people and only 2 active. Eventually the cost will exceed the value.

How much is it due to the decline of forum popularity? Due to costs? Due to people not wanting to mess with things? It's a bit more complicated than that I think.

Downer much? While they're not at their peak anymore, it's hardly the downward spiral to oblivion that you make it out to be.

These social media companies have multibillion dollar budgets so it's hardly surprising that they fly.

Also, being an "admin" on Facebook is hardly the same thing as an admin on your own forum - I know, I've been there and it doesn't begin to compare to the control I have over my forum. You're just a user with slightly more privileges than the average Joe and crap admin functionality at that. You're not comparing like with like. Where's the structure to Facebook? It's just an endless scroll without different sections. Once a post has gone past, it's never seen again and a million other differences compared to a proper forum like this one. It's a different market.

So, what have you accomplished with the likes of Facebook that you couldn't do with a forum? Some detail is relevant here.

One point you keep making is that you'd want to see forums become all fresh and relevant again rather than allegedly looking dated. What sort of look and functionality do you have in mind then? We don't need lots of details, just a general picture. If you have nothing, I'll take it as unfounded criticism.

Unlike forums, social media have offered things forums 20 years later STILL struggle to offer and catch up on. And by the time it gets to forums, it already feels out of date or half assed.

Social media tends to focus on the person and their content. Rather than their content then have the person be an after though. Heck, 20 years later and forum profiles are STILL widely not used by most people. Social media flipped that. So much so you can now log into forums using your social media account.

Social media has significant reach. Start your forum. Go ahead. Now don't advertise it, but still add content. Odds are, the number of people coming in will be minimal to non-existent. Now make a FB page and do the same. You will have people joining with no advertising.

This is not a 'proper forum'. It's easy to lose a post or thread without searching for it. I have had no problem searching for a post on my FB page and finding it.

What have I accomplished? My page has had a significant influence on city politics and citizen and local govt engagement. In fact most of the topics my page have brought up (which has included local city corruption), were recently put into the current election public forum for all candidates to answer. My page has had a strong influence on the current city election. Asd well as the call for local transparency and accountability by the community. Amongst other things. I run the page alone.

The page has altered the community in many ways. But positive ways. Including the call for an Ethics Committee and re-evaluating the local spending and economics. And much more. Because of all I have done a local business owner out of appreciation bought me a $1,000 laptop and podcast stuff so I can start doing podcasts too (which I'm working on). I paid for $0 of all that and there are no strings attached. Could that have happened running a forum? Not likely. Because it would not have had the same level of immediate reach or impact.

I would NEVER have gotten any of that with a forum because more people are on Facebook where it is more highly visible. I never boosted a post or spent a dime advertising it. In fact, I never advertised it. People found it on their own and it took off.

Had I created a forum, most people would not have signed up or participated on it. Most would never have found it had I not advertised it somehow. I have spent exactly $0 to run my FB Page and $0 to promote it and get people. And I spend almost no time promoting it and minimal time running it. With forums I spent countless $$$, a significant amount of time and effort running it and putting it all together, just to run and promote it. Only to end up with 1,000 members and only 3 active. It's ridiculous.

There's a Xenforo forum I check out from time to time. 50K+ members. They have a poll on the front page each week. In most cases only a few dozen actually do the poll. And it's usually the same few members being active on the forum. It's gotten worse every year. Their registrations have slowed too.

People use Google to find what they want. Not forums. Forum engagement is now less required also because of websites like Reddit. Most don't like signing up for countless forums and having to remember usernames and passwords for all of them. Facebook and Reddit eliminates that.

Most people want the information now. To discuss it. Then to move on and not linger on that same topic. That's why so many forum threads end up off course and resurrected. It's a dead thread that's served its purpose but like a zombie keeps coming back for no reason.

Most people don't use search. I see that everywhere. As well social media already has millions of built in members for you to attract. Forums have 0.

Forums today largely are just more polished 20 yr old forums with some new functionality. They really bring nothing new or exciting to the table. They don't encourage use or for people to buy them.

When you go to Facebook, the first thing you see is your timeline. Then you see what friends and family have posted. You can directly participate with them from your account without leaving it. Forums don't focus on people. They really don't focus on content either.

And what purpose are profiles if no one ever uses them and forum makers never find ways for them to be utilized or want to be utilized? You can't convince me forum makers 20 years later STILL haven't figured out a use for them or for people to do them.

Social media isn't perfect. But it's clearly been more innovative and useful overall and figured out what the people want and adapted to it, more than what forum makers have. That is why forums are on the decline and social media has now become the defacto for most people.

I'm still astounded that 20 years later and forum member profiles have changed little and helped create no user or member engagement. What is their purpose even? Almost no one even uses or visits them. Or a vast minority do.

 

[KimmiKat]

But there are many that don't do Freakbook and more everyday that quits it.

 

[Deleted member 3691]

From what I see with our own business and speaking to dozens of professional community managers daily, I don't recognise anything you wrote whitetigergrowl. I respect that is from your point of view, but it's certainly not the prevailing feeling out there.

 

[we_are_borg]

The cloud solution is not meant for simple websites its to expensive its $588 per year in 2 year and 3 months you are cheaper by doing self hosting. Remember its software hosting only so you will still need a solution for email so you have additional cost. Its what i see more and more omg cloud solution i need it now but people do not see additional cost. But its also the companies that is not helping the customers the first year IPS is the most expensive what about doing this its a 1000 dollars first year lets say you can rent it first year for 90 dollars a month you pay 80 dollars more but that is to cover Credit Card cost and if someone has issues. But the second year you can choose pay 27 dollars a month or do the normal 300 dollars or nothing (no more support etc). Third year and beyond the samething.

 

[Pete]

Its funny, whenever we get these long wails about how no one ever uses the forum profile, I ask what he thinks forums should do, and only get silence. It’s moaning for the sake of moaning.

In any case, when I’m on a forum, I’m not looking at my profile because that’s not what I’m there for, I‘m there to see the content and engage with it. On Facebook I’m there to see other peoples’ content, not look at my own.

 

[Deleted member 3691]

Forums are not social media.

Forums are not about personalities. They are about a shared interest.

 

[Pete]

Forums are not social media.

Forums are not about personalities. They are about a shared interest.

Exactly!

 

[KimmiKat]

Ditto. And they don't harvest the crap out of you like social media does.

As per cloud vs self hosting, the big boys (corporations) will go the cloud route so everything is handled in one swoop. And self hosting as someone else posted for the small peons that just have hobby sites or whatever. This is true for many things.

 

[TrixieTang]

Forums are not about personalities.

What if it's a forum about an internet personality?

CHECKMATE!

 

[Deleted member 3691]

What if it’s a forum about an Internet personality who plays chess?

Checkmate. Checkmate.

 

[Pete]

What if it’s a forum about YouTuber Davie504?

Slap, checkmate.

(Apologies if this one is too obscure.)

 

[Deleted member 3691]

Is not enough BASS.

 

[FTL]

What about a forum about a forum about a forum? (Repeat as necessary)

 

[Pete]

What about a forum about a forum about a forum? (Repeat as necessary)

TAZ is not yet big enough to have its own groupies' forums.

 

[FTL]

TAZ is not yet big enough to have its own groupies' forums.

I was thinking more along the lines of recursively auto generating nested forums until the server exploded. ?