Some thoughts on the Groups function on the boards

After playing around with the groups function and chatting with zombie67 about it, it's seeming that this area can be both more and less useful than we had hoped.

Posts over there don't show up when you click on the "New Posts" link, even if you're a member of the group. As is, people very specifically have to navigate to check out what's posted. The "New Group Messages" link will show you new posts to your groups, but that's it. All in all, if you want everyone to be able to see it, the groups area is not the place to post it.

However, if you want secure areas to discuss things among a few people, the Groups area is the place to do it. You can set up levels of security there to keep people out if you so choose. It would also be helpful for challenges - rather than creating a new area of the boards with some oft-argued over security area, we can create a group moderated by the team captain.

Those are my thoughts. Take them for what they are.

Not bad...Not bad at all...

A prime idea.. I especially like the idea of having the challenges on the group functions, because that way people who aren't participating (like myself, on most of the challenges that are heavy GPU, because I don't have one that will crunch) don't have to see all of the discussion..

I believe it will prove to be more useful than not.

Well, we need to do something along those lines, so why not give it a shot? If we don't like the way it turns out in practice, we can always make a team only forum later. Sounds like this might be really useful.

Did some further testing around this evening (thanks, DrBob and KaoticEvil, for playing along), and have some more thoughts...

- No matter what the security level of the group is, any one who is logged into the forum can see any posts in the group area. The only difference is that people who aren't members of the group can't post.
- For anyone who starts a group, you moderate the group. If you set a higher level of security, you get to invite members and/or accept them. It's not a lot of work, but would get awfully annoying if it were "invite only."
- Personally, I see little reason to set any permission level higher than "open registration." Since everyone can see the posts, you don't have protected info. Set it as open to keep the workload down.
- If you start a group, you do NOT have the ability to delete the group. Maybe this is something our admins can change? Alternatively, leave it as-is and just bug the admins if/when you want to delete a group.
- You can boot members if you need to. Just an FYI...
- More and more, I'm thinking the groups area is best when trying to keep things out of the forums, so as not to overpost there, and allow people to select themselves in to specialized discussions.

I'd encourage others to try out the groups area and try to play with features I haven't used. Again, just posting my thoughts...