Upgrade/Changes: Social Group Changes & Member Albums

[MustBeJewel]

Social groups as they were contained a wall where members could write messages.

The wall is great for leaving messages such as 'hey, nice group!' but isn't that useful when it comes to actually having a meaningful discussion about the chosen topic. Another complaint was that someone would post something specific and it would be buried in the wall and forgotten.

In order to greatly enhance the ability of social groups to allow users to talk about their common interests, the social group messages have been threaded with the use of 'discussions'.

By default, the user who created the group can moderate their discussions and the messages within them. Another permission allows users to configure their social groups so that only they can create discussions within that group. This allows users to create social groups with greater control over the subject matter.

Discussions and messages now also have several features. This creates an interesting scenario where group owners can now see how moderators work with the forums, and allows them to get involved in their own space. Features included:

• Full inline moderation (Discussions and Messages)
• Quick Editing (Messages)
• Subscriptions (Groups and Discussions)
• E-mail Notifications (Discussions)
• Social Bookmarking (Discussions)
• Read Marking (Groups and Discussions)

With read marking, users can mark discussions or entire groups as read, as well as automatic marking when users have read the last post of a discussion, or the last discussion of a group.



Users can also subscribe to a group.

The main Group page has also been redesigned and Groups can now be sorted into Categories. Group owners also have the option of uploading a thumbnail picture for their group.



Social Group Categories
Each Social Group now belongs to a category. Categories allow users to find groups that are relevant to them, especially on larger boards. The categories are predefined by the board admins. As well as providing suggestions to the users for the kind of groups they could create, this also allows admins to encourage users to create social groups that are relevant to the board as a whole.

Categories are included in the advanced search filters, and can also be viewed individually. Selecting a category displays only the social groups that are in that category.


If you are a social group owner, please upload an icon for your group

If you have Group "Category" suggestions do let me know.

Any questions at all for members or group owners just post here


Member Albums

A link for "latest album updates" has been added to Top navigation bar

Pictures can now be moved between albums.