How are you using member categories in Ning 3.0?

[Monica Diaz]

Hi everyone, 

As you might know, we relaunched the Member Categories feature for Ning 3.0 networks a few weeks ago with some awesome new functionality.  A couple of the things that you could already do were visually identify featured members, administrators or other standout characters on your network, and you could send a broadcast message to a particular member category on your network.

The newest functionality that we released was that you can now sync up your member categories with permission levels for features on your network.   

This is an amazingly powerful tool at your disposal now, and I'm sure there are even more things you can do with this feature than we can think of.  

If you're using this feature on your network, we'd love to know how. Share the details below to inspire other Network Creators, and you may even get some new ideas to bring back to your community. 

Thanks!

[Tatiana Dokuchic]

Monica said:

Hi Ningaholic, 

The Member Categories feature still has a one-to-one aspect, as it does in Ning 2.0: members can belong to one member category only.  The idea of extending the feature to have members belong to more than one category has been discussed before, but at this time, there are no plans to change this current behavior. 

Thanks for your feedback!

Dang!  I was sure that members could be assigned to more than one category but I guess it was wishful thinking.

I wanted to implement a three tier hierarchy (let's say Bronze, Silver & Gold) that allowed increased access to content contribution. 

For example: Bronze can post in Forums; Silver can post in Forums & Blogs; Gold can post in Forums, Blogs & Events.

I guess it's back to the drawing board unless someone else can figure out how to accomplish this with a 1:1 member to category relationship.  Any thoughts would be appreciated :)

[Ningaholic]

From what I learned today, you can probably pull something similar off with group assignments given the 3.0 functionality...

[Tatiana Dokuchic]

I quite like the Group functionality so far, Ningaholic but I'm afraid I can't bend it enough for what I had in mind with the Member Categories.

One of my problems is that there is currently no way to easily highlight group activity on the Home page so using a Group for what I had in mind would be too isolating.  Perhaps as more functionality roles out I will rethink things but for now I'm just going to go with two levels of members.

[Mike Collins]

So has anyone got any ideas about how you could still make the most from leader boards AND assign people to member categories. Currently I have a Top Collaborators member category that is linked to an awarding body framework that highlights those that share content and are collaborative. They get a badge (through member category) and we can shout them out and recognise them.

I'd also like to assign my members to different areas of the community so they don't see things that aren't as relevant to them. I can't have both so interested in seeing what other people are doing or if any bright spark out there has got any ideas how to get around this.

Ideally I'd like a way to assign a badge without being in a category - is this possible in Ning 3.0?

Or we can assign to different categories (already confirmed not happening)

Cheers

[Janettee McCrary]

OMG! This is exactly like the feature on Shutterfly share sites (which I requested a couple of years ago) - you can totally shut off each individual page to only one subset of users. So, say, I could set up a page for each individual city/state/neighborhood and make it ONLY visible to those who are a member of that group! AWESOME!

[Paul Harrison]

This is good, but how do we get to the Site & Pages manager to make these changes?
Is it implemented yet for all Ning networks?
I can't see it anywhere in my management dashboard or contents list.

[Allison Leahy]

Hi Paul, Before you see the member categories appear in the dropdown, you will need to create them by heading to the Member Moderation section of your dashboard and selecting "Member Categories." Check out this Help Center article for more info.

[Paul Harrison]

I already have member categories, but Sites & Pages are nowhere to be seen.

Please could you just spell out exactly and in detail, as if I were a Dummie, where I go to open/close certain features to certain categories of members.

Can I also control who's allowed in different individual groups?

Thanks

[Kos]

No problem.  3.0 takes some time to become accustomed to where everything is located.  Hope this screenshot helps.  Create the categories here then go up to the top where it says "members" to assign the category to different members.

[Paul Harrison]

Nothing in my network resembles the above.

Here is
1. a screenshot of the menu on my dashboard

2. A screenshot of what I see when I open Member Categories