Talk:InvisionFree

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Contents 1 Minor Spelling edit 2 ZetaBoards 3 References Made 4 No reason to delete this 5 Comments 6 Neutrality disputed 7 External links 8 Neutrality still disputed? 9 Too much detail 10 The Invision marketing department 11 Good job done removing POV 12 My edit reverted 13 "Great Boards" 14 NPOV 15 Completely unsourced and uncited 16 Critical observations and remarks 17 → Critical observations and remarks 18 Notable Forums removed 19 "See also" section deleted 20 Merge from ZetaBoards 21 Move proposal

[edit] Minor Spelling edit

In The Switch section:

"It depends on what yu wanted it for." changed to "It depends on what you wanted it for." --Alex Hayes 12:51, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ZetaBoards

• Added a link to the main ZetaBoards artical.
• Deleted some information as it is availible on the main artical

Titan602 16:29, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References Made

I've gone through the article and referenced every claim, bar the quote from Brandon (As Invisionfree is currently having some problems with lost data, including that quote), but it is true, and as soon as the data is restored, Ill add the reference.). I've taken away the citation warning as well, as that should be sorted now. MichaelM312 22:00, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No reason to delete this

There is no reason to delete this article, can someone please explain why they want this deleted?--Hammerfist0 20:45, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

It was nominated for deletion for NPOV reasons (being too ad-like) and was fixed, then reverted, repeat, etc. I was going to re-nominate it for being a pain in the backside, but it seems that might not be necessary, and probably wouldn't have worked anyway. Check the entries further down this page for more info.

PhranK 00:10, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

yes being a very active member of invisionfree i have to say that it is very well run and the admin over there do a great job. I would just like to give a very warm thanks to all the guys at invisionfree and tell them what a wonderful that they have done. It also has a very good support forum for everything you need to find out about your forum so if you have any questions go there and you will be answerd asap the community over at IF support is one of the best i have ever seen thanks to a great bunch of moderators and admin thank guys and keep it up :P Homestar

[edit] Neutrality disputed

I just found this article to check up on InvisionFree and I had the same thoughts as below - it does read very much like a press release!

Anonymous comment by 81.109.242.42

This article reads like an advertisement for InvisionFree. The relatively large number of links from this article to its website also makes it look like an ad. It would be great if the article could be rewritten to give a more encyclopedic point of view. FreplySpang 03:41, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This article is definitely biased, with most of it saying that some people believe that the support is poor, and at least in my opinion it looks like the disputed text was written for the purpose of attacking InvisionFree. It might be better to expand this article and write crticism in a neutral point of view. Oklonia 03:50, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That was my edit. Sorry it came across as an attack; I was trying to incorporate another POV represented at the support volunteer article. (Note the difference between criticizing and reporting criticism.) When I said the article read like an ad, I meant the version before I edited it. Anyway, let me check out Arthur Dent's extensive edits. FreplySpang (talk) 20:12, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Arthur Dent, for going through and making those changes. I'm withdrawing the NPOV dispute now. FreplySpang (talk) 20:20, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I just finished almost completely redoing the whole thing. I reorganised the headings and added a lot of information. I also added an external links section and removed as many in-article external links as possible. I hope everyone is happy with the rewrite. --Zeerus (ETCWFD) 14:49, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] External links

In accordance with NPOV, I think it should be noted that the only website listed under External links should be the official site. Listing any other InvisionFree boards would be POV. This is not addressed to those who are doing a good job removing such links, but to those who inevitably place such links back. The issue of an extremely notable board such as IF Skin Zone is tricky, but the link to Skin Zone has been removed enough times that I think the general consensus is that it does not belong under External links. Ben Babcock 2 July 2005 00:00 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality still disputed?

I have rewritten many parts and hopefully made the article a more neutral point of view. I would like to know now, hopefully from the person that originally marked this article if possible, if the article's neutrality is still disputed or not. If the article still does not have a NPOV, it would be nice to know exactly what is still wrong so it can be fixed

--- MatthewDent 19:07, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I dunno, it seems perfectly fine to me. It really only states the facts about the site, He does link to it, but if you search "invisionfree" on wikipedia, how hard is it to go to google. (This comment was made by User:66.184.238.170. Please start signing your messages with four tildes.)

Phrases like "It is believed to be..." and "It can be argued that..." are not really making the article any more neutral. The article is still not THAT biased though, but nevertheless I didn't feel comfortable to remove the NPOV-message. If anyone decides that it can go, then I agree...but I could also see why people would like to keep it.SoothingR 14:34, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree, I don't feel comfortable removing the non-NPOV message myself as someone might still think it's biased somehow. From a recent discussion at the support forums, people still seem to believe it's very biased and has 'advertising' in it. It just doesn't seem that this article has had a very good history for being neutral, unfortunately.

--- MatthewDent 15:06, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I believe that 65.101.68.120 has succesfully tackled the NPOV-issue, by removing a lot of redundant content and shortening the article to something short, sweet and to the point.SoothingR 08:29, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

If only he'd now go to Forumer and do the same.

Why's the change reverted? This is most definetely not less biased than 65.101.68.120's version. This old version includes a lot of redundant information and is even POV at some points. With no clarification, I'm gonna re-revert this in a few days of time. -- SoothingR^(pour) 15:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Too much detail

Wikipedia is not a web host. Much of the detail in this article isn't really appropriate for an encyclopedia, and better suited for InvisionFree's "about us" type pages.

Things like the "support methods" section, especially, are unnecessary. — ceejayoz ^★ 05:08, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Geocities would be a good template, having the history of the website some brief detail about the site itself seems appropriate. --JPotter 05:19, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Geocities is also significantly more notable. — ceejayoz ^talk 23:12, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Invision marketing department

I guess the Invision marketing department wrote this article, huh? It is very far from NPOV. I think I'll tag it thus.

Atlant 13:30, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

We don't really have a marketing department, actually. ;)

The current version seems to have arisen from a topic at the company support forum (where I mentioned it being inaccurate, etc.) and it appears to have been reverted to a previous edit that had been deemed NPOV, from what I can tell, but what do I know?

Tis poo, indeed, but better than the recent version(s). :/

.:PhranK:.

24.216.233.22 14:35, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. Obviously, anything you can do to help sort this out would be appreciated!

Atlant 14:44, 16 February 2006 (UTC) (who has actually used IPB, BTW)

[edit] Good job done removing POV

This article reads much less like an add now, Kudos. -- Avi 18:33, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that lasted a long time. Is there any more reasonable and rational way to deal with this situation? I apologize for not having the time to learn the ins and outs of this site, so please forgive me if I'm going about things the wrong way, and/or give me a link that tells me the proper way. Can we just request that Wikipedia not only delete this article but prevent any further articles about InvisionFree from being created? Or, can we have our staff (who actually know the facts about our service) write up an article, have it checked for POV, then have it posted and immediately locked to prevent all this nonsense?

PhranK 02:20, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism (and juvenile edits, reversions, and the like) is an unfortunate fact of life here at Wikipedia; a lot of us spend a lot of our time combatting it. Articles are occasionally briefly locked when they suffer egregious bouts of vandalism, but no article is locked forever; who knows when there will be actual useful content to be added or changes to be made?

With regard to "can our staff write the article?", in general, the answer is "yes", although Wiki has been in the news a lot lately with regard to U.S. Congressional staff "touching up" the articles about their employers (the congresscritters), so people may be a bit more sensitive than usual in this regard. But really, who would know more about the Invision family of products than you guys? Done fairly, I really can't see anyone complaining (much).

(Full disclosure: I am the creator and an occasional editor of the article about my current employer and I spend a lot of time editing the family of articles about my previous employer. But in both cases, I try very hard to maintain an appropriate level of objectivity to ensure that the articles reflect a neutral point of view.)

But you will need to add the article to your "Watchlist" and monitor it, because, just like any Wikipedia article, as sure as the sun rises, someone is sure to come along and vandalize it from time to time, if only to add the traditional "xxx is so gay!" sort of pubescent stuff that is so popular here.

But thank you for your effort; don't give up!

Atlant 14:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Also, don't forget that there are plenty of Wikipedians who keep an eye on what's happening here. If we have this article on our watchlists, chances are we will be able to revert the standard vandalsim within a few minutes. -- Avi 18:09, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I have had this article on my watchlist for months. I've removed vandalism from this article in the past and will continue to do so in the future.SoothingR 18:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Awesome. I appreciate your efforts, folks. My main issue with many of the reversions.. revertings?.. whatever.. is that they were reverted to inaccurate/poorly written/nearly blank articles. But I guess if we write up an "official" one that we know is accurate and well-written and is agreed to be NPOV, that could be used to revert back to whenever needed, right? And maybe we can get our admins to check here now and then and somehow mark any newer versions that have additional information as accurate as well, so those could become the default entry for anyone to revert to when needed? And sorry for the improper formatting in my previous edits. I'd not been able to find the bit about the colons. :/

PhranK 00:02, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My edit reverted

My edit was not vandalism. It is the truth. They do not offer many features a real board needs to run correctly. They do it because idiot seven year olds make forums and don't know what to do. That is why Project Dark Empire, Hailstorm, Project Hailstorm, The Kaosu Buntai, The Alliance, and more are able to crack the forums. The InvisionFree staff say that they do not hack which may well be true but Hailstorm does hack. Maybe not the server but he does hack. The Kaosu Buntai has their own means and Project Dark Empire gets in through cracking and supposed hacking. The Alliance claims to hack. The Kaosu Buntai denies it and they used to use, I think, SQL injections. I know of a person who cracks passwords using a script to grab them from the database. It did work at one point. He could grab the MD5 password and then attempt to un-encrypt it using a website such as MilW0rm. It does work. I did it on one of my old boards that was not InvisionFree when I forgot the password after I'd chagned it to make sure it would stay. This stuff does work and while InvisionFree limits the database and skins so malacious code can't be put in there is cracking going on on InvisionFree I believe. If not explain how the many "hacking" and cracking groups get in and destroy boards. I know of five currently active. There's been more too. I could list all the ones I know about off if you want. How do I know most of this? I have my reasons and most of which are not negitive. I think InvisionFree does not want to admit that they are vulnerable to such happenings. They try to hide it and make it appear as if they are safe just like the fake Hailstorm, SwampFox, did a while back. There are over 30 boards that are in the control of crackers and hackers. 16 Kaosu Buntai, 3 Hailstorm, approx. 10 Project Dark Empire, 3 Alliance. And those are only by the larger known groups, save Hailstorm as he works alone, so there's bound to be more smaller groups. The truth should be known. It can happen and does. Almost once a week now there is a site taken by some cracking group whether the forum be dead, offending to the group, full of spam, run by abusive staff, or if the group gets bored it does not matter. They are still cracked, hacked, etc. I leave you now with this and hope it is considered for the sake of the idiotic seven year olds thinking they can run a forum. Also for the stupid thirteen year olds who are scared because they are also not capable.

-Guest

While your points may or may not be valid, your edit may have been removed based solely on your tone and extremely negative viewpoint taken. Just a thought. Because your comments there are pretty harsh and they certainly take a point of view. --Eternal Trance 05:17, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

A minor correction is that these malicious users crack, not hack. As far as the Kaosu Buntai go, they are into the cracking of Lego Bionicle boards which have "poor, abusive admins" and bad passwords to teach them a lesson. The seven year olds must also have sent in a COPPA form in order to be able to use the IF Service. As a metaphor, for those of you who play the Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald games, Team Magma and Aqua are doing the same kind of thing, claiming to "benefit" everyone, while they are really hurting everyone. ~Jess

[edit] "Great Boards"

There was a link in the "great boards" section that had one member, and something like 3 or 4 posts. The others can and should remain, being vital parts of IF and IF's history (SZ, largest; FS, First resource; Lonick, FS' website; ZS, 3rd fastest growing resource)

And as a note I myself added Zeta Styles, I just got staff there and thought it was a worthy addition, being the 3rd fastest in terms of growth in member count, and one of the largest growing with post count.

I believe all current "great boards" links are valid and should remain, however, if it seems to much like advertising feel free to remove them all.

[edit] NPOV

This article still reads like an ad. Perhaps some criticism should be included as well as comparison to other similar sites. I am adding the tag back.—Who123 02:09, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Completely unsourced and uncited

This article is completely without sources or citing. As such it is not compliant with WP policies.—Who123 02:21, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

True. What would you suggest is the best way to go about it? Most of the information from the first section comes directly from the IF website. I'll look into the policy for sourcing before doing anything. If it would suit matters better, I could provide the sources and someone more knowledgeable add them in. --Emperor Wu 09:03, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Critical observations and remarks

This article reads like an ad for InvisionFree. In order to try to comply with the WP policy of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a Critical observations and remarks section is being added.—Who123 19:48, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I've removed this section as it was original research, simply expressing some users' opinions without citations from reliable sources. This isn't the way to attain NPOV. --ZimZalaBim (talk) 11:51, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] → Critical observations and remarks

I think the part about Database backups should be removed, or atleast edited to comply with NPOV. I think their example is a little over exagherrated (sp?). I doubt they would charge $320 for one of their services. I don't think I even ever heard an Invisionfree staff member use that amount. Maybe this could possibly be verified, then if not, removed? Alan ^{Talk - Contributions} 22:41, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notable Forums removed

I've removed the "Notable Forums" section since it contained a single board, ironically not even the most notable IF board of all: the IFSZ. Smells like advertising to me. I don't know if a "Notable Forums" section would be acceptable but if so I'd suggest first compiling at least 3-5 boards first. --Emperor Wu 15:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "See also" section deleted

The only link in that section was for a different free forum service provider (forumer). Due to this I removed the link and section. Funpika 18:51, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from ZetaBoards

Please merge relevant content, if any, from ZetaBoards per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ZetaBoards. (If there is nothing to merge, just leave it as a redirect.) Thanks. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-09 09:47Z

[edit] Move proposal

Who agree's to it being renamed?--Titan602 (talk) 11:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Agree I agree. The official name of IF is now ZetaBoards and wikipedia must be kept up to date.--Titan602 (talk) 11:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Disagree Actually InvisionFree will remain active alongside ZetaBoards without any given timeline (actually the term 'indefinitely' was used). People can upgrade to ZetaBoards only if they want to. --real_decimic 20:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)