Why there is no social groups utillity developed by ips ?

[Peter F.]

20% of IPB users is a large number - and if those 20% are made up of the larger forums, that is an awful lot (millions?) of members of forums that would benefit ;)

so yes it would work for those millions of members who would benefit potentially. ;)

I think he was specifically referring to the fact that 80% of the users who want social groups would not use it in the way he wants, while only 20% would.

In any case, yes there is a mod being developed by me to implement Social Groups functionality

[Wolf]

Honestly, I think this should be a community project. A lot of people won't use/won't have use for a social groups function managed by IPS. While an unofficial modification is being developed, a lot of people who *NEED* social groups really don't feel comfortable relying on a third party to provide it, regardless of the developer's reputation. To make it a community project is win-win. Users who want the feature and have an active license can download it, and users who don't need it won't have their installation bloated by it. I personally would use them, but I know many others who will not.

[Alfa1]

I am seriously interested in converting my vbulletin big board to IPB. Over the years my board has accumulated a lot of important content that I would like to see converted to IPB.
However, there is a gap in core features that would make me loose vital content. Social Groups is one of these core functions. (reputation comments & points and tags being the others BTW)

On my board they are a big success, because:
- Social Groups allow members to start up new groups, to fill the demand for new forums that we would not add to the main forums.
- Social Groups allow a group of member work on the same project (like the improvement of specific site/forum areas or the assistance of your staff)
- Social Groups allow your members to connect to others with the same interest or demographics.

Even though vbulletins Social Group functionality is extremely basic, they have grown to be a big success and a vital part of my community.

If IPB would create social groups functionality comparable to the social groups of Joomla, PHPFox, Google groups or Usenet then I'm sure such Social Groups functionality would be highly successful on many IPB sites.

I'm not requesting IPB to become more like vbulletin, but I am requesting IPB to add Social Groups functionality that surpasses vbulletins incomplete attempt at Social Groups.

My board can not do without this vast amount of important data associated with this functionality.

Is there any chance that IPB would consider providing this functionality?

[CallieJo]

ATM content between all apps is separated. There is no easy way to connect related content between all the apps. It would be nice if admins could create main categories and connect all apps by category and end-users could easily access all related content between all apps without going through each app to locate that content.

Social groups could solve this issue if implemented the right way using the apps already available at IPB. This is one of the biggest reasons why I highly support social groups...done the right way...connecting related content.

Admins could use social groups to organize all their community content. They can choose not to offer social group creation to their members and just use the groups for their own ideas. This option would be perfect for those who do not want to have a bunch of member created social groups.

Those that would like to offer this option for their members could utilize them as already requested.

As an admin, I would have liked to utilize social groups to help organize related content within the community as well as letting end-users create their own social groups. ATM, I've moved onto to other solutions...but I would have rather used social groups within a community setup...and am still hoping to do so some day. Yes, I'm well aware of the >group addon...it's a great addon...but, atm it does not offer the integration between all apps as I'm suggesting.

What should a social group offer?

A social group should be more than a sub-forum. It should have the same ability (limited only by owner permissions & admin choices) to that of the community. Social group owners should be able to display their events, have a forum for discussions, a blog for the group to submit news, an album to share photos, a downloads area to share files, custom group blocks using the full editor, maybe a way to purchace membership through Nexus, etc.

Right now some of my business members are trying to use their profiles for some of this. But, profiles are >limited & lacking in IPB/VB/XF/ETC. that this is quite difficult in this case. Using the updates/comments area of a profile is also quite difficult since it lacks bbcode & a better way to display long text. ?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>>Personalization is also lacking. And >profile privacy as well.

Here are some ideas for social groups that I would personally find useful.

Each social group has the following community admin options:

• Decide which usergroups can create a social group.
• How many groups can be created per user.
• Setup default categories for group owners to choose to list their group under.
• Decide which apps can be integrated into the social groups. IE: gallery, blog, calendar, downloads, nexus, forums, etc.
• Decide whether or not you give the ability to not show the community's default header & footer.
• Decide whether or not that usergroup can make their group public or private.

Each social group has the following group owner options:

• Personalization (similar to a ?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>>custom blog)! Upload backgrounds & change colors of the backgrounds, headers, content areas, etc. Choose whether or not to display the default community's header & footer.
• An area to display a welcome message and about the group information. Full editor support including bbcode.
• Group owners can choose a group category to be placed under upon creation.
• Be able to choose which apps they want to show their content from within the group. IE: designated forum that belongs to only that group, have their own calendar category to submit events to, choose a blog to connect their group to, choose an album to share photos within their group, have a downloads area to share items or sell in their group & offer support from their group, etc.
• Be able to use custom blocks (similar to >custom profile blocks). They can use the editor to add anything that the editor allows in posts including bbcode. IE: A business could use this to display custom bbcode to showcase a google map to their business location. Artists can showcase their latest video. Gamers can showcase their latest stats. Movie goers can showcase a movie clip. Etc.
• Choose whether others can freely join the group or join by request or by invitation.
• Choose whether or not the group is public or private. If private, offer the ability to at least submit a request to join the group. If public, anyone can join. If private, all app content associated with the group should be private elsewhere in the main apps as well. IE: blog, photos, events, forum, etc.
• Permissions: whether owner or owner & members (all) can submit to each app. Who can submit new topics (owner or all). Who can submit comments (owner or all). Who can submit events (owner or all). Who can submit photos (owner or all). Who can submit a new blog post (owner or all). Who can submit files & products (owner or all). Whether or not submitted content is held in moderation until group owner approves it or not. Etc. Etc.