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JoelR last won the day on October 5 2023
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If you follow the news, one of the biggest and most consequential changes to the entire globe is the election of President Trump in America. And even if you live in another country, his election will likely have ramifications. Over the weekedn, the United States VP JD Vance criticized Europe for censoring social media, interfering in elections and violating the rights of Christians. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/14/vance-slams-europe-on-free-speech-migration-in-first-international-speech One of the biggest ones for tech companies and social media platforms - which is already happening for US tech companies - is a loosening of free speech. On one hand, it's an impossible task for social media platforms to monitor and be the arbiter for What are your limits on free speech? For example, What if members express support for far-right stances such as anti-immigration? What if members express support for freedom from vaccinations, or that Covid was a hoax? What if members express support for kicking out certain members for not being of a certain religion, color, or belief?
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It had nothing to do with IPS Cloud, they provided the backup on the day I requested it. It was the server admin (and candidly myself) who should have requested another more recent server backup when I realized it wasn't going to be immediate, I had no idea it was going to take as long as it did.
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Valentine's Day is coming up this weekend, which is a perfect excuse to host a "Love Your Members" theme, contest, or event. There are plenty of fun celebrations throughout the year, anchored by big seasonal ones such as Valentine's and Christmas. These are "easy" themes. The dates and context behind these holidays are well-known, well-understood, and easily adoptable. But it's also heavily overused and generic. Every forum tries to do a Christmas thing. Every forum tries to do a Valentine's thing. When your credit card company tries to send you a Christmas celebratory introductory rate on a new credit card, you know the holiday has become a bit overdone. What I encourage you to do is come up with events that are tribal. These are events or contests that uniquely resonate with your community or within your industry, so it's much more specific, smaller, and therefore more special. Your industry might already have some events that you can build on, or you can come up with your own events that are unique to your community. Some thoughts: Hosting tribal events versus generic events isn't any harder or any easier. You're still hosting an event, one way or another. You may need to design different branding, images, or marketing artwork to put a unique spin on the event, but going through the motions of hosting the event is the same. It gets better as time goes on. The first year, you may need to do more communication and more awareness around what the event means. In future years, you've already built the template and cultural legacy. It's okay to still fall back to the generic events. If you're in a rush, it's forgivable to quickly throw together a Valentine's "Love Your Members" or a Christmas "Secret Santa" forum post exchange, so don't beat yourself up if you didn't do all of the ideas that you wanted. Supplement and incorporate tribal events when you can. So this Valentine's day, you will not celebrating any membership loves and kisses with Invisioneer. What I do care about on this Valentine's day is helping you think about building a deeper, more meaningful and special relationship with your members in a way that can't be replicated.
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It was possible, I just didn't ask I have a server admin who conducted the server move, and he was extremely delayed in doing the work. So even though I requested and prepped him in advance of the server move, he didn't actually do it until 3 weeks later.
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Buzfeed announces new AI-powered social media platform BFIsland
JoelR replied to JoelR's topic in Social Media
In the actual manifesto by BuzzFeed CEO, it's titled Anti-SNARF https://www.buzzfeed.com/bfisland/manifesto SNARF stands for Stakes/Novelty/Anger/Retention/Fear, which are the secret ingredients behind virality. If you ever needs to juice up your engagement, this is it. This is the framework of stylizing your posts to make them engage a little harder. On another note, as easy as it is to criticize BuzzFeed, I do believe most humans crave a sense of normalcy. We can't be living in a world of heightened outrage every moment. We need periods of calm moderation. -
IPS proposes private forum boards for support tickets
JoelR replied to JoelR's topic in Forum Software & Technology
Certainly for past support tickets where we may have shared private server information in tickets, it would make sense to keep them all private. Now that IPS has switched to public inquiries, it's ironically made me wish for private support tickets to come back again. -
I referenced the reason in my announcement topic but it came down to cost. It is so much cheaper to self host, and given that Invisioneer is a site that's offered for free and I want to make this sustainable for several years, I needed to lower my ongoing costs as much as possible. For full disclosure, last year IPS did give me a courtesy upgrade to one higher tier than what I was paying for on the cloud, for which I'm thankful. But ultimately, I can lower the ongoing expenses (not just a little, but a lot) and make sure Invisioneer keeps going for several years.
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Everybody talks about community management. But I actually think that the #1 component of success behind your community management - and this is especially targeted at independent sites, hobbyists, and solopreneurs - is self management. What I mean by this is that, before you can run your community and spend time on your community, you need to make sure you manage yourself. Literally, how well do you manage your 'real world' life before you try to manage your 'digital life'? Do you have a stable job that can pay the bills, and have a little extra to pay for your forum hobby? Do you have a strong set of real world friends, social connections, and networking? Are you connected to the news and industry in your niche? Are you disciplined in setting aside time to run your forum? Are you successful in leadership, team building, befriending new people, or organizing groups in the real world? For small and independent communities that are run by a team of one, your community's success is entirely dictated by you. And creating those personal pillars of success, whether financial, content, ideation, copywriting, or otherwise is all dependent on your own abilities, time, and energy. All of these are critical ingredients to your success, and I don't think self management is talked about enough. In forum admin communities (and after 20 years, are still some of the worst places for actual advice), they want to focus on the quick and fast wins with topics like, how do you boost engagement? what are SEO tricks? what plugins should I install? They almost never focus on the long-game of your personal life that powers your community involvement: what is your personal discipline, the time allocation, the content scheduling, the brainstorming and ideation and funneling of new topics? Do you have a stable job that can pay for your forum? We should give as much introspection to our own selves as much as we spend on discussion for community management.
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SNARF stands for Stakes, Novelty, Anger, Retention, and Fear, and it describes how online content evolves under AI-driven recommendation systems. These algorithms prioritize engagement, meaning that content that triggers strong emotional reactions and keeps users watching, clicking, or commenting is favored over nuanced or informative media. As a result, creators adapt to these incentives, producing increasingly extreme or emotionally charged content to remain visible and competitive. Each element of SNARF contributes to its virality: Stakes are exaggerated to make the content seem urgent and essential. Novelty ensures the content appears fresh and unique, even if the ideas are recycled. Anger drives engagement, as outrage fuels comments, shares, and arguments. Retention hacks, such as clickbait titles and withheld information, keep users watching longer. Fear heightens urgency and emotional investment, compelling users to focus and act. This cycle has a profound effect on culture and politics, shaping public discourse into meme-friendly, emotionally manipulative narratives. News stories are selected not for their importance but for their ability to be reformatted into SNARF. Political movements across ideological lines must conform to this structure to gain traction, turning discussions into emotionally charged, simplistic conflicts rather than constructive dialogue. The impact of SNARF extends beyond individual content pieces—it creates an addictive, anxiety-inducing digital experience where users are constantly bombarded with high-stakes, fear-driven messaging. This environment fosters polarization, misinformation, and emotional exhaustion, making it difficult for people to engage with media critically. Understanding SNARF is crucial to recognizing how AI-driven algorithms shape what we see, believe, and discuss in the digital age.
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Buzfeed announces new AI-powered social media platform BFIsland
JoelR posted a topic in Social Media
BuzzFeed announced that it's creating its own social media platform called BFisland to "spread joy." The new platform will focus on positive content, interactive storytelling, and self-expression using AI tools. Although details are unclear, the platform will be designed to improve online connections. https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/11/buzzfeed-is-taking-on-instagram-tiktok-x-with-a-new-social-platform-designed-to-spread-joy/ -
We moved to a VPS 🙂
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For any Providers who are looking to update or add new files in bulk to the Marketplace Directory (whether due to this server move or in general), you are welcome to start a message with me. I am happy to help you.
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I apologize, we had A server move that was delayed by several weeks so our data was delayed at that point: https://invisioneer.org/index.php?/forums/topic/876-2025-02-08-server-move/
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Haha oops, that really was a typo. My android may have been unconsciously trying to say something ... 😄