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Topic descriptions no more


TCWT

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Agreed. What happens when IP decides that tags are old news?



will be removed and tough luck to the forums that use it.

thats one of my main issues with IPB, options are added for forum members/admins to use and forums are moulded around these options.
then IPB decided that they are no longer used and are removed, leaving the customer to search for a solution or a work round so they can continue with their forum.
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To be honest my post seems somewhat harsh now - I'm not saying we're going to find tags removed in 3.3 or anything. But it does seem somewhat arbitrary, and I could understand anyone who made use of the descriptions being unhappy. I've had a couple of members who made point of adding topic descriptions to their topics ask what the story is, and I can't do much than say 'don't know, they're just gone'. I don't like that.

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To be honest my post seems somewhat harsh now - I'm not saying we're going to find tags removed in 3.3 or anything. But it does seem somewhat arbitrary, and I could understand anyone who made use of the descriptions being unhappy. I've had a couple of members who made point of adding topic descriptions to their topics ask what the story is, and I can't do much than say 'don't know, they're just gone'. I don't like that.


Just spend 12 bucks on my hook bro. B)
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We have no plans to reintroduce the topic description feature as, in our research, very very few communities ever used it in a useful way. When you add that it cluttered up forum view, was not searchable, and few users used it consistently we decided it was not worth keeping.



That said, we have not removed the database column for the topic description so I am sure someone will create a simple hook to re-add it if you like the little text field.




What research? I wasn't asked and I didn't see anything in the forums asking feedback.

We DO use this feature, and arbitrarily removing it does a HUGE disservice to those that did. Make it an option. And this mindset of "just modify your site" is getting old. I've been there, done that. Have the t-shirt, bumper sticker and baseball cap. I will not spend hour after hour redoing things after an upgrade any more. And if "just modify your site" is going to be the response after arbitrarily removing something that affects a lot of users, you can be rest assured we'll start looking elsewhere.
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meantime

http://forum.invisionize.pl/files/file/428-pav32-topic-description/ - free

http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/4614-et32-topic-description/ - paid

not tried either but its an option. And before anyone says that they knew a hook would be made for it, it doesn't make it ok. As forums were left for a period of time without this hook being available. Also, coders cashing in adding the functionality back in.... no comment.

I'm not bothered either way personally but some very valid points have been raised. More visibility about functions being removed is just as important as blogs going on about new features.

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What research? I wasn't asked and I didn't see anything in the forums asking feedback.



We DO use this feature, and arbitrarily removing it does a HUGE disservice to those that did. Make it an option. And this mindset of "just modify your site" is getting old. I've been there, done that. Have the t-shirt, bumper sticker and baseball cap. I will not spend hour after hour redoing things after an upgrade any more. And if "just modify your site" is going to be the response after arbitrarily removing something that affects a lot of users, you can be rest assured we'll start looking elsewhere.



my view also
thank you for your comment
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I understand the reasons that you decided to remove this feature. However, you should understand that there are communities that still use this feature and it is a pity for all these communities to have to pay $12 in order to buy the hook. You could just easily just make the feature optional, make it disabled by default and let your customers decided whether to use it or not. Thank you for your time.

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They have to do that?




Of course not. But when an IPS Staff member says "in our research, very very few communities ever used it in a useful way", one wonders exactly how they conducted this research. Am i missing something here? How do I subscribe to or become part of a group in which IPS gets feedback from?
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Of course not. But when an IPS Staff member says "in our research, very very few communities ever used it in a useful way", one wonders exactly how they conducted this research. Am i missing something here? How do I subscribe to or become part of a group in which IPS gets feedback from?



You're never gonna get the answer to that question lol
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I understand the reasons that you decided to remove this feature. However, you should understand that there are communities that still use this feature and it is a pity for all these communities to have to pay $12 in order to buy the hook. You could just easily just make the feature optional, make it disabled by default and let your customers decided whether to use it or not. Thank you for your time.



There's also the option of making it more useful - it's not searchable? Well, maybe it should have been. Could topic descriptions have also served as meta descriptions?

Flogging a dead horse here anyway. Personally it hasn't affected me much, but I share the views of others on the way these decisions are made, and it affects how I use (and buy) IP products.


Of course not. But when an IPS Staff member says "in our research, very very few communities ever used it in a useful way", one wonders exactly how they conducted this research. Am i missing something here? How do I subscribe to or become part of a group in which IPS gets feedback from?



Sign me up.
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No, we don't issue polls for every decision we make. We don't look at just our hosted sites either. Out of all of our customers, maybe 20 have raised a concern about the topic descriptions being removed on their site. If you used them, of course this doesn't help you or make the situation any "better", but the reality of the situation is that the majority of our customers did not really use the feature.

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No, we don't issue polls for every decision we make. We don't look at just our hosted sites either. Out of all of our customers, maybe 20 have raised a concern about the topic descriptions being removed on their site. If you used them, of course this doesn't help you or make the situation any "better", but the reality of the situation is that the majority of our customers did not really use the feature.




Are you familiar with the term 'silent majority'? Most will never speak up about things. So please tell me how you are coming to the conclusion that "the majority of our customers did not really use the feature".

Don't take offense to the question. I am just trying to understand, as a paying customer, how IPS determines these things. I want to see IPS software thrive and take over more sites. Having dealt with other programs int he past such as VBulletin, I can tell you the customer service here is far more friendlier and superior. However, some aspects leave a little to be desired. Such as this issue's handling.

Thanks for reading!
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Are you familiar with the term 'silent majority'? Most will never speak up about things. So please tell me how you are coming to the conclusion that "the majority of our customers did not really use the feature".



Don't take offense to the question. I am just trying to understand, as a paying customer, how IPS determines these things. I want to see IPS software thrive and take over more sites. Having dealt with other programs int he past such as VBulletin, I can tell you the customer service here is far more friendlier and superior. However, some aspects leave a little to be desired. Such as this issue's handling.



Thanks for reading!


Didn't you just answer you own question while asking it? They used the silent majority. :P

I don't understand why they're going off of what the customers did. Shouldn't it be off of what the customer's users did?
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Are you familiar with the term 'silent majority'? Most will never speak up about things. So please tell me how you are coming to the conclusion that "the majority of our customers did not really use the feature".



Don't take offense to the question. I am just trying to understand, as a paying customer, how IPS determines these things. I want to see IPS software thrive and take over more sites. Having dealt with other programs int he past such as VBulletin, I can tell you the customer service here is far more friendlier and superior. However, some aspects leave a little to be desired. Such as this issue's handling.



Thanks for reading!




We work on thousands of sites a week. When every single one of them, consistently, isn't using a feature, it's a sign that the feature is unnecessary.

I understand it's difficult to accept when a feature is removed. It really doesn't matter one iota what feature(s) we remove, there will always be some that are unhappy about it, and that's fine, and understandable. Just please try to understand that we aren't ripping features out to upset our customers - that would be silly. We are trying to make the best, most stable and secure community platform we can, and sometimes that means removing legacy concepts and notions that aren't used as much today as they once were. We decided that topic descriptions were one of those features, we removed them. There's really not a lot more that can be said about the issue. We can go back and forth all day over how we made this decision, but the fact remains that we did.

We will always continue to evaluate the feedback regarding the direction of the software, and if we feel a change in course is due at some point in the future, then so be it. As it stands, we feel this feature was largely unused by the vast majority of our customers, and we decided to make the cut with 3.2.
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  • 2 months later...

Was just starting to evaluate the work to upgrade and luckily found this first. Our main forum is commenting on political news stories and the Topic Title is the actual news story title and the topic description is then used for a personal note on the article, it is used often to help point out why it is relevant to other uses or to clarify something. We use it heavily.

This alone means no upgrade. I see there might be mods to deal with this, but then it appears there is risk of losing all topic descriptions if the mod is removed.

I'm really disappointed that this feature was removed.

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Was just starting to evaluate the work to upgrade and luckily found this first. Our main forum is commenting on political news stories and the Topic Title is the actual news story title and the topic description is then used for a personal note on the article, it is used often to help point out why it is relevant to other uses or to clarify something. We use it heavily.



This alone means no upgrade. I see there might be mods to deal with this, but then it appears there is risk of losing all topic descriptions if the mod is removed.



I'm really disappointed that this feature was removed.


Hello.

There is a hook available that restores this functionality.
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Was just starting to evaluate the work to upgrade and luckily found this first. Our main forum is commenting on political news stories and the Topic Title is the actual news story title and the topic description is then used for a personal note on the article, it is used often to help point out why it is relevant to other uses or to clarify something. We use it heavily.



This alone means no upgrade. I see there might be mods to deal with this, but then it appears there is risk of losing all topic descriptions if the mod is removed.



I'm really disappointed that this feature was removed.




http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/4873-pav32-topic-description/

Supports 3.2.x
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