Private Rooms - What are Cletus and Bartimus

I could tell you Hermit but then I'd have to kill you.



They are rooms set up by special request for very specific reasons. Jenna can be petitioned to create such a room but the need has to be demonstrable. Sorry I can't be more specific.

I don't think the "group membership" thing has anything to do with the private forums. I really don't know what that's about. Maybe someone could elucidate both of us.

Frank is correct. The public usergroup thing is one of the features we haven't really looked at in depth yet. By default, users are already organized into groups such as Administrators, Moderators, Banned Users and so on.

The public usergroups are a custom thing that would let us organize users in other ways than the default vBulletin groups, and then apply permissions to that group as a whole. An example would be one of the differences between Moderators and Super-Moderators: Mods can only delete and edit posts in their own forums, whereas Super-Mods can do so in all forums.

If my preliminary reading is right (and PLEASE don't hold me to anything I say here, I could very easily have it wrong), we could for example set up a group who's members could post in a certain forum, whereas nobody else could, but every AW user could see the posts. I have no idea why we would do such a thing, I'm just pulling for-instances out of my hat.

Clear as mud, ain't it?

ChunkyC said:

If my preliminary reading is right (and PLEASE don't hold me to anything I say here, I could very easily have it wrong), we could for example set up a group whose members could post in a certain forum, whereas nobody else could, but every AW user could see the posts. I have no idea why we would do such a thing, I'm just pulling for-instances out of my hat.

Click to expand...

It's got potential for things like public editing or critquing. You get a volunteer writer, and a volunteer critiquer, and maybe a volunteer editor. They do their thing in a forum where only they can post, but everyone can read. This cuts down on off-topic posts, for instance, and let's them just get on with the process.

Indeed, good suggestion, Lisa. *scribble scribble*

Should we perhaps rename this thread to something more appropriate and see what other ideas we can come up with for making use of custom public groups?

If y'all feel like looking into the possibilities, I'll do more reading and post pertinent sections of the help files on the subject as we go along.

Hermit, are you okay with us hijacking your thread for this purpose?

ChunkyC said:

Indeed, good suggestion, Lisa. *scribble scribble*

Should we perhaps rename this thread to something more appropriate and see what other ideas we can come up with for making use of custom public groups?

Click to expand...

I've a fair amount of experience with instructional technology, and rely on things digital in my own teaching. I suspect I could come up with a few more ideas, if you're interested.

One thing I've been thinking about is a sort of "Best of" collection. There are a number of truly fabulous posts by Jenna, HapiSofi, "Uncle" Jim Macdonald, and a number of other folk that we often cite. We should have a permenent place for such to point newbies to. That might be a case where Moderators can post, but everyone can read--again, you'd want to keep the thread "pure." One might, in copying the posts, include a link to the original post . . .

Hey Lisa!

Funny thing... that's what the FAQ section was originally meant for. People are mostly using it now to ask questions related to the forum's functions, but it was supposed to be a spot where we'd copy posts that answered typical questions like "how do I get an agent?" and "what's a query letter?" and "how long is a novel supposed to be?"

If you want to nominate any posts for that kind of purpose, please do. Maybe I'll break it out into a new board, like you're suggesting.

ChunkyC said:

If my preliminary reading is right (and PLEASE don't hold me to anything I say here, I could very easily have it wrong), we could for example set up a group who's members could post in a certain forum, whereas nobody else could, but every AW user could see the posts. I have no idea why we would do such a thing, I'm just pulling for-instances out of my hat.

Clear as mud, ain't it?

Click to expand...

This sort of group is used on some other forums I belong to for posting official announcements.

I'd like to have a place where old posts are that are informative, or funny, or just plain necessary. It could help the new members tremendously.

Jenna

I'd just about decided to start accumulating a list of potential FAQ kinds of posts, so I'll give you a shout in a couple of days.