Ability to hide private groups

[Marc]

If there is already a way to do this I would love to know how, but from what I can see there is no ability to create a hidden group. Private groups are great, but almost every other platform I briefly looked at before deciding to spend more time developing my new network on Ning has three settings for groups - public, private and hidden.

If all the other platforms have this feature there must be a reasonable number of people that want it. I, for example, want to create a hidden group for the management committee of my network, but I'm sure there are plenty of reasons to want this.

Does anyone else think this is a significant gap in the current Ning offer? Can anyone from Ning tell us whether this is a planned feature, or whether there is a reason why they don't want us to have hidden groups which I may not have considered?

[Gary]

This is definitely a feature many of us want!

[Dave99]

Me too. And the choices should be as you said: "public, private and hidden." With hidden being, of course, only members of the group, and the NC or administrators, could see it.

I hope some other NCs will respond here and at least get Ning to respond here also.

The reason other platforms have this feature is simple, it's very useful. And, I'm guessing, it shouldn't be that hard to code. In simple cost/benefit terms, Ning should implement this ASAP.

[Marc]

I'm surprised there weren't more responses to my post. Given that this is a standard feature on most of Ning's SAAS and open source competitors, I assume it is used by admins in many social networks.

Could we get a comment from Ning on whether this is something you see value in, or does it not align with your vision for the typical network built on Ning?

Do any other NC's want to add their support for this idea to help us get it moved up the priority list, or am I just wrong on thinking this would be valuable feature for more than a few NC's?

[Lynne Fowler]

Having the ability to Hide Groups would be a valuable addition to have. I have a Network Private Group that I keep things just for me to be able to get to, hidden in a subtab under my Manage tab. But the title can still be seen in View all Groups. I would love to be able to completely hide it. If other Private Groups could also be Hidden to prevent others from even knowing about them unless invited, that would be great.

[Groudswell]

I agree...I'm looking for the same controls. Not having this is a major issue for my network!!!!

[Chris]

+1

[Nicolette James]

I totally agree! This is something that I am looking to do but can't. Does anyone know when this feature might be added? it's ridiculous that it doesn't exist now.

[Kyle Hannan]

Hi. I agree. A simple 'Hide This Group' button would be very useful if someone starts making comments that need to be taken away from public view and dealt with within the group. Even more useful would be a 'Make This Group and All Content Visible Only To Members' button. By default, this option would automatically make the group and content non-searchable too.

 

 

[Mike Hudson]

Add my support for this feature too.

[John M. Black]

This is a deal-breaking feature for us.  We need to have some forums that are only accessible to certain members, and I don't see any way for Ning to do this.

[Mike Hudson]

You can do private forums.  Just enable the forum from within the private group itself and not in your public forums area that appears in the main navigation.  The group and group description will still appear in the listing of groups, but if you've set the group from the beginning to " private" and / approve all new members - you content is safe from public perusal and search engines.

Some of us wanted groups where the group did not even appear in the group listing page.  Currently that is not possible. 

 

Here's my Groups page - http://www.progressandmain.com/groups

 

Here's one of my groups that is set to "private" and "invitation only" - http://www.progressandmain.com/group/nine

 

As the admin of the group, I invited and approved all of the members - none of our conversation, pages, docs... etc are public.

 

 

 

MH

[Tyler Durbin]

You can also create a page with comments and have it only visible to administrators.

Personally, I think email is a more effective means of communication between management.  The open source software I use has hidden groups and even private forums but I would never talk business on them.

 

For now, you can create a hidden Facebook page that is private and invite only.

 

I'm not saying it isn't a good idea, but definitely shouldn't be a deal breaker.  I am using the top open source software out there and m dumping it for Ning.  The headaches alone are worth the move.