Posting to social groups/finding the forums

[Kerrick]

I can't seem to find the forums for any social group, including the one I made just yesterday. I can find the groups just fine, but all the links lead to the same page - a list of the members. How do I find the forums and the discussions??

 

[Morrus]

I knew that question was coming! I was going to write a quick guide, but had to walk the dog before he destroyed the house!

1) If you did not use the "I have 10+ members, create a custom forum" option for your group discussion, your choice is simple. There's a toggle in the group settings (Edit Group) to switch discussion on or off. Today's upgrade has turned them off by default (annoyingly!)

2) If you DID use the "I have 10+ members, create a custom forum", then your custom forum still exists, although the new group format doesn't link to it. You can
---(a) Keep the forum, and provide a link in your group description/header. If you do that you're best advised to turn group discussion to OFF, otherwise you'll have both types, which could be confusing.
---(b) Simply use option 1 above, and ignore the custom forum.

The new default discussion (option 1) allows for threads etc., now, so the only advantage to keeping a previously created custom forum is if there was a lot of conversation you wanted to keep. Or you could link to it as an archive and activate the default group discussion system.

If anyone didn't bookmark their custom forum, and need the link, let me know (remember to tell me what your group name is). There were only 13 people who used that option, and most of them had almost no conversation in them, so it shouldn't be a major issue.

As to why the change? The previous option was a hack that I installed to provide asked-for functionality. The latest vBulletin upgrade provides similar functionality by default, and better coded, too.

 

[covaithe]

You can
---(a) Keep the forum, and provide a link in your group description/header. If you do that you're best advised to turn group discussion to OFF, otherwise you'll have both types, which could be confusing.

I tried to do this for the Living 4th Edition group/forum, but the group description allows neither bbcode nor html, so I can't see any way to put a link there. Losing our forum and going back to group discussion threads is not an option for us; we have thousands of posts and many active threads. Is there some way that I'm not seeing to put a link in the group description?

What we'd really prefer is getting promoted to a proper forum, but we haven't had any response to that suggestion.

 

[Morrus]

I tried to do this for the Living 4th Edition group/forum, but the group description allows neither bbcode nor html, so I can't see any way to put a link there. Losing our forum and going back to group discussion threads is not an option for us; we have thousands of posts and many active threads. Is there some way that I'm not seeing to put a link in the group description?

What we'd really prefer is getting promoted to a proper forum, but we haven't had any response to that suggestion.

I'll check into it - in the meantime, use the group's discusison feature to post a single post with a link. I'll check into the promotion, too, but I seem to recall I tried before and there was a problem.

 

[Kerrick]

I knew that question was coming! I was going to write a quick guide, but had to walk the dog before he destroyed the house!

2) If you DID use the "I have 10+ members, create a custom forum", then your custom forum still exists, although the new group format doesn't link to it. You can
---(a) Keep the forum, and provide a link in your group description/header. If you do that you're best advised to turn group discussion to OFF, otherwise you'll have both types, which could be confusing.
---(b) Simply use option 1 above, and ignore the custom forum.

I followed this route. Since there were only a few posts in discussion (which I also can't find ), deleting that for the forum is no big deal - I wanted to make a forum anyway, for people to post stuff.

If anyone didn't bookmark their custom forum, and need the link, let me know (remember to tell me what your group name is). There were only 13 people who used that option, and most of them had almost no conversation in them, so it shouldn't be a major issue.

My group is the Society of 3.5 Revisionists. Thanks for the help.

 

[garyh]

I'll check into it - in the meantime, use the group's discusison feature to post a single post with a link. I'll check into the promotion, too, but I seem to recall I tried before and there was a problem.

Thanks for the help, Morrus! And we'd love to be on the main forums with our other Living Game compatriots if that's at all possible.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

What we'd really prefer is getting promoted to a proper forum, but we haven't had any response to that suggestion.

I'd like the same for the Tale of the Twin Suns if at all possible.

 

[Morrus]

I'd like the same for the Tale of the Twin Suns if at all possible.

With all respect, Reveille, your group is pretty small in comparison to L4E, and most of the posts in your forum are by you! I'd suggest simply activating the group discussion system. You'll find it much improved.

L4E was an exception (because of LENW, LE and LS); I certainly don't intend to turn every social group into a forum in the main forum list.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

L4E was an exception (because of LENW, LE and LS); I certainly don't intend to turn every social group into a forum in the main forum list.

Okay, I understand.

 

[Knightfall]

I'd like the same for the Tale of the Twin Suns if at all possible.

Rev,

Here's a link to your social group's forum...

Tale of the Twin Suns - EN World D&D / RPG News

I was able to access yours (and mine) by going through the tag cloud.