what's the group membership?

[Outofin]

This is unimportant. But it's my habit to check out all options when I install a software and the likes.

In member's profile, there's a section called Group Membership, and everyone got the same status: "is not a member of any public groups". What is that?

[phbriggs]

It's where you record that you are member of the falon gong.

Seriously, Roddy will be able to confirm, but the forum host software probably allows you to register to discussion/chat groups based on particular issues. It looiks like this function has been removed however still appears on the profile page.

[roddy]

It hasn't been removed, there just aren't any public usergroups yet.

It's possible for me to set up usergroups, which people can then join. I can then give someone moderator rights for that group, so that they can choose who joins, and set up forums that only that group can see.

An example would be the 'Studying in Beijing' forum. At the moment that is completely public, and there's no usergroup associated with it. However if necessary I could set up a 'Beijing' usergroup, and make that forum visible only to members of that group. A group moderator could also send mass pm's to the group, and I could give them various priviliges - an ability to edit each others posts, or to administer the links database, etc.

Other possible uses might be for study of a particular text, a group with a particular interest, etc. If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

There are also non-public usergroups which members don't have any control over. New members are classed as 'new' and can't use private messages, and all their posts are pre-moderated (I don't keep a record, but I would guess about 50% of messages from new members just get deleted - they're spam, irrelevant, pointless, whatever).

Anyone who is actually using the forum for what it's meant for will quickly move from the 'new' into a 'known' usergroup - this is where the vast majority of members are, and gives you the ability to post directly to the board and use private messages.

Sometimes I decide to stop someone posting freely, and they move into a 'restricted' user group. This brings their access down to the 'new' level, and their posts get checked before going onto the board. This happens pretty rarely, and the members in question often get annoyed by it and stop posting - which is fine by me, usually.