Allow users to swtich between exciting secondry groups as primary

[Jacob Sutherland]

The title pretty much sums it up, I just moved to IPB from vB and the fact that users can't select their secondary group as display isn't a big turn off but them not being able to switch their secondary to their primary and other way around switch the primary to secondary is a hassle.

[Woodsman]

This may help explain.

http://community.invisionpower.com/4bugtrack/secondary-groups-r643/

[Jacob Sutherland]

I just don't see why not, if we set them as secondary we can trust them to decide if they want to keep it secondary or primary, it's a feature in vB and it saves admins a lot of time especially if you got thousands and thousands of users.

[Woodsman]

The secondary group is designed for the administrators and their view only. It was never intended for public view.

I can name off a few good reasons to keep the secondary group as admin view only.

The biggest most important would be

(1.)security vulnerability.

(2.) Most people (admins) will add a member in a secondary group for a test run to see if that member is up to the challenge of handling simple or complex duties. If not no harm done because they will never be seen on the front end as being demoted.

(3.) Dependability, Fairness and Honesty. Not just with the board duties and product line but membership as well. Will he be able to do his duties first over letting a member slide on destructive  activities or piracy.

(4.) Animosity among the ranks. as in special treatment doing the same duties. With the secondary as it is you as the Administrator can setup different moderator groups some with other functions an permissions than the normal group where as far as front end view they appear the same. Also keeping the arrogant member from pushing his title in your face.

***And lets not forget Administrative choice. The Admin picks and chooses who makes it to a secondary group not the membership.***

 

[opentype]

 

***And lets not forget Administrative choice. The Admin picks and chooses who makes it to a secondary group not the membership.***

​That’s how it’s set up here, yes. Having been on vBulletin with their social groups as well, I can tell you that giving the users specific choices of secondary groups can be quite useful. Just because IPS software can’t do it at the moment, doesn’t mean it couldn’t be useful. 

Secondary groups are not just for specifically chosen members (e.g. moderators). Think about special interest or language-based forums. They might be non-accessible to standard members so they don’t clutter up the View New Content page, but the admin could give members free choice to join these groups by themselves. People loved this opportunity on my vBulletin site and I consider it still a loss that I can’t offer this choice anymore on my IPS site. 

[Makoto]

This is definitely something that could be implemented as a plugin. I'll bookmark this thread for when I start working on my IPS 4 plugins and see what I can do.

[Woodsman]

I am not disagreeing with either of you. Secondary groups could have other useful purposes in the future. We as the administrators can create groups as we deem them necessary for example the group +Clients here on IPS is not an out of the box group setting. Special Interests would have a value as a secondary group down the road, the same could apply for further group setting in the future (Members Choice) where members can pick and choose their secondary group. This could be a valuable feature, but the question here is why can't he switch between Primary and Secondary like VB. At present Secondary groups are a Administrator view/choose only.

And if memory serves me well, this was a Hot Topic back in 2.2.x, 2.3.X days Where Members (Administrators) were begging for a secondary group just for administrative only purposes implemented in 3.0.

[jackflash]

VB's take on social groups really help separate them from being just another forum software vendor.

[Jacob Sutherland]

This is definitely something that could be implemented as a plugin. I'll bookmark this thread for when I start working on my IPS 4 plugins and see what I can do.

​That sounds good please do it god I'll even pay 30-40 bucks if i have to lol, it's a feature that loads of my members loved with vB and miss with IPB.

 

​That’s how it’s set up here, yes. Having been on vBulletin with their social groups as well, I can tell you that giving the users specific choices of secondary groups can be quite useful. Just because IPS software can’t do it at the moment, doesn’t mean it couldn’t be useful. 

Secondary groups are not just for specifically chosen members (e.g. moderators). Think about special interest or language-based forums. They might be non-accessible to standard members so they don’t clutter up the View New Content page, but the admin could give members free choice to join these groups by themselves. People loved this opportunity on my vBulletin site and I consider it still a loss that I can’t offer this choice anymore on my IPS site. 

​I agree completely and that's exactly how I see it.