Important Notice about Groups - This is now a Sticky

**Clinton** · July 14th, 2011, 10:46 AM

As some of you know there has recently been more conversation in Groups than in the open forum.

Is that a good or bad thing? I suppose there could be arguments made both ways. I'm here simply to facilitate and to provide what members want.

And members seem to want to discuss more confidential stuff without it being out in the open for everyone to see. They could use VIP Lounge, but VIPL doesn't offer them one feature: the ability to control who can read / participate in the conversation.

So we have a facility for that: Groups.

Regular members (who've proven by making a few posts that they're not here to spam) can start up private conversations and invite friends to those chats. They do this by creating a "group" and making that group either a public or private one. If it's private they then get to choose who they invite to the group.

Here is the homepage for groups. You can also get there by going to your profile and following the link in the left column.

Action has already kicked off in there with several discussions that the group owners are hoping all invitees will keep confidential.

As of today I've raised the 1000 character limit per post and you can now post up to 10K characters in group posts. You can also now use quotes and post code, links, lists etc. Some members have also started uploading images.

Glad to be of service and all that

Any questions?

**Andy** · July 14th, 2011, 10:50 AM

I was wondering about that. I take it there is no way to access groups from the home or forum pages?

Andy

**Kay** · July 14th, 2011, 11:34 AM

I think the groups thing is a great addition to the form. But when I click on the link above I get to see all the groups I haven't been invited to join.

No, no, no. I'm not saying that I want to be invited to join the naked rugby players group. (Dunno why they've excluded me.) But somehow it doesn't seem right to see all the places that don't want to have me as a member.

I got the impression that the group owner (perhaps in consultation with other group members) invites people to join. If the existence of the group is public then it looks as though people should apply to join.

**Andy** · July 14th, 2011, 12:56 PM

Gee Kay, They don't even LET me see the groups I'm not allowed to join.

Andy

P.S. Just for you. Enjoy!

**Kay** · July 14th, 2011, 01:18 PM

Oh heck. Now I am a member of the naked rugby players group. I'm not sure if this is a dream come true or if I should learn to keep my big mouth shut sometimes.

**Andy** · July 14th, 2011, 01:35 PM

Shhhh! Now EVERYBODY will want in!

:-)

**Kay** · July 14th, 2011, 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by Clinton

As some of you know there has recently been more conversation in Groups than in the open forum.

Is that a good or bad thing? I suppose there could be arguments made both ways.

Personally I love private, members-only places. We use them quite a lot on our own sites. But you need plenty of info and discussion in public too so you can enable people to make friends and decide who they want to associate with. Only then can you move to the more private areas with groups of people who like and trust each other.

**Clinton** · July 14th, 2011, 04:57 PM

But when I click on the link above I get to see all the groups I haven't been invited to join.

I can see some groups being two people setting up the group simply as an alternate to communicating via PMs.

I still haven't figured some stuff out but bear in mind that I may have access to all groups whether I've been invited or not.

**TheodoreK** · July 14th, 2011, 05:46 PM

There might be a problem with the visibility of the groups right now as they seem to lack any privacy.
I think that everyone can access the group discussions and see what's going on there right now, but only members can post in them.