I don't know what the thoughts are on groups here by everyone. I do think they are needed for a social site. I created a group here awhile ago but it's very limited. So the other day I made a site for the group, but I'm not so sure that is the way to go either. There kind of needs to be a combination of both where there is the ability of posting (with pics) to a group, but still have the guidelines of the group and the ability to monitor the group, deal with privacy, whether it's an open group, or closed group, etc. I am wondering if maybe plug-ins could be added to groups to allow for more flexibility in groups? I know this is something down the road as we want people to blog here more and get more familiar with the place. But I also think if we will save a lot of time and energy if there is an easy way to go about it, by using plug-ins for the group's pages. I guess this is where Brian needs to put his two cents in. I realize plug-ins cost, and would be willing to contribute to the cost of the plug-ins needed. But maybe others here have different ideas for groups?
I don't have a thought one way or the other about groups, but I just can't resist commenting on the forum cause it has all my favorite "pretty-uppers"! 🤩 🤩 🤩
Quasi, most of it is just a learning curve, although admittedly a kind of steep one. The one issue you raised, privacy, I'm going to need another plugin for. That would enable you to make the whole group site private to group members, or allow you to have only certain pages private.
As far as posting and moderation, you use user roles to accomplish that. All members come in as a member role, you can make them author, editor, moderator, administrator, or create new roles and privileges.
Essentially except for privacy, everything is already there, it needs to be learned to be used.
Just want to add, privacy will not keep network admins out. Right now that's just me, when we add somebody else it will mean they have full access also.
When this site is fully running I want the moderation function to be separate from the administration function. Admins keep the site running. Moderators set the policy for what's on it. I don't want those to be the same people.
@diogenese19348 yes that is understandable, and I wouldn't expect any group to not be subject to some moderation of content and intent.
@diogenese19348 Well one of my concerns was by creating a page for the group, was the ability for all members to be able to post content there and just not comments. I will have to do some more researching to see how to do all of that if it is already there. It needs to have the flexibility for everyone in the group to meet all the needs of being a real group. Also with the groups now, it does list all the groups in one place but with pages/sites if we go that route, there will have to be more linking, etc. I just wondered if a plug-in or two would help with the posting content for a group for everyone in that group.
What you can put on a group page on civatar itself is really limited, and there are no plugins that help that, which is why renderunto was a flop. With multisite you create a site for a group, and link that page on civatar to it, then set all the roles there.
I can walk you through some of that, but there is plenty of documentation for it.
Here's a good place to start:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/wordpress-user-roles-and-permissions/
It looks like you can add a text block to the group page. What I would add is the link to the group site. Then you take care of all your membership roles and abilities there.
