Tell us about Groups improvements you want to see

[Evan]

Hi Creators!

We've heard feedback from a lot of you that, in addition to launching awesome new features like Ning Design Studio and the Like button, you'd like Ning to spend some time updating the features you already use on your Ning Network.

We've been listening, and that's exactly what we have in mind for some upcoming releases. To start, we're looking at making a series of improvements to the Groups feature. Many of the features involve bringing behavior and features within Groups to par with the similar actions on the network level, while others are totally new.

The requests that bubbled to the top of our list were:

• Update group privacy options, starting with making who can view a group a separate option from member moderation
• Ability to change a group from public to private and vice versa — or switch between moderated/unmoderated — after creating the group
• Improve welcome messages on the top of the page when joining/creating a group
• Change the default for new-member notifications. Currently, new members are automatically notified via email when additional members join. We want to change this so only Group creators are notified when new members join. Regular members can opt-in to these emails, but we would change this to be off by default.
• After creating a group, take group creators to the group homepage, instead of the invite page
• Allow network admins to close discussions
• Redesign Manage Group Members page to match network-level member management page
• Allow groups to be sorted alphabetically
• Allow group creators to add Pages to groups

What do you think? Will these improvements make your life, and your network, better? What's most important? What's missing from this list that could make Groups a much better experience?

Let us know!

[Note: URL was changed based on a typo. Apologies for any broken links!]

[Speed Racer]

for the NC to have supreme control, and be able to be, or, make someone else the top group admin if the group creator happens to decide to leave.........creation of a community group should not be considered an individual's personally added content, if they leave and choose to "remove all content".

[AMZ]

Yes i've always wanted this I want to be in full control over groups

Ning i love that add a page to groups thats just really epic

[Paul Corona]

Agreed!  Really vital to maintain legacy content regardless of group creator status....I like the idea of members being able to take the initiative to create groups, but think that group deletion should be allowed only with approval of the site creator/admins.

[Matt Black]

Another vote.  Need to be able to change group owner.  

 

Maybe it would even make sense to make the display of the group owner optional.  A picture of the person who started the group several years ago is often the wrong vibe for my site

[Deb W.]

Good point about the picture, Matt.... I agree....

[KSN]

The group forums to be part of the mobile version. One of our groups is probably the most popular section of our site and I keep hearing that from our members.

[Denis]

I have a group on my network which has too much autonomy and I don't like that because it's like I am hosting a ning mini on my network for free.

Suggestion: There should be two kinds of groups: One kind of group open to any network member to create and another kind left to NCs to give out.

1. A Community Group (Meaning that it is a group that relates to the main objectives and subject matter of the community. For example: Network: Denis Language School = Example of a community group: Teachers Group). This kind of group will have limited privacy or autonomous features. A little bit like what we have now on our networks.

2. An Autonomous Community Group (Meaning that it is a group that discusses very private issues not necessarily related to the network objectives and subject matter. Could just be about a network member's family for example. This kind of group would have full autonomy. It is this kind of group that we NCs could sell to people who want greater autonomy. They would have more things in their small world including even a group chat, group music playlist, etc. People would pay to own this kind of group.

Example one is like owning a room in a family home. You do things in your room but you belong to the family.

Example two is like owning a suite in a hotel. You enjoy the suite with your friends but you don't worry about the cleaning and management of the hotel.

Thank you Ning for asking for our ideas on this in advance

[J.Wings]

I like the pages idea, maybe tabbed pages. 

 

[Speed Racer]

your new name is awesome.

[Alliance]

tabbed pages is in

[J.Wings]

Id like some sort of template layout for groups pages similar to what we have for the main page... in other words, you could chose different default content in the side column(s), and put different modules in different places - similar to profiles. If you use groups more like forums, you could make the group forum top and center. if your groups are more "features" you could hide the member list, and iframe the feature into the textbox, and put comments and ads in the sidebar. You should be able to move the giant group ID box from the top of the main column to one of the side columns as well.

[Eric Suesz]

That is great stuff, MC BOGUS. Great stuff.