Am I in a Group or not?

[fmitchell]

Every time I log in, I see "You are currently not subscribed to any social group." However, I am subscribed to "Dallas Roleplayers". Is it not a social group? Is this something like the wave-particle duality, wherein I'm only in a group based on what experiment I perform?

[Farcaster]

The DFW group is actually in a forum. You are probably subscribed to the forum and not the group itself. I know it is confusing at the moment, but perhaps after we start to move groups to be using group discussions instead of forums, it will be less so.

[fmitchell]

Looks like I "joined" the group but didn't "subscribe" to it. That's an annoying distinction: join implies subscribe, although I can see subscribers who don't "join". But whatever.

[Farcaster]

Subscribing to a thread, a forum, or a group in the context of this forum software means that you are signing up to receive notifications of new content. Is there a term that would making it easier to understand?

[Anaesthesia]

I have a similar question with groups. I am in the "NEPA D&D Players" local group, and I usually add our game dates to the community calendar. Now when I try to add dates to the calendar, at the top it says to pick a social group. The drop down list won't open for me, so it won't let me add a game event if I don't add a social group.

Is NEPA D&D Players a social group or something different? I'd really like to be able to post our events in the calendar, but not sure if I'm doing something wrong...

*confused*

[Farcaster]

It is a group, however, your group organizer has not selected the option to Allow Members to Post Events. That means that only he or she can add events.

[I. J. Thompson]

...perhaps after we start to move groups to be using group discussions instead of forums, it will be less so.

Will this be mandatory for all groups (play-by-post, specifically)?

I'll soon be moving my pbp group here (because I really love your site), but being able to print a thread is a big factor for us, which I don't think you can do with group discussions. Also, having a presence in the Play-by-Post forum offers much more visibility (potentially attracting new players) than Group Discussions do.

[I. J. Thompson]

Will this be mandatory for all groups (play-by-post, specifically)?

I'll soon be moving my pbp group here (because I really love your site), but being able to print a thread is a big factor for us, which I don't think you can do with group discussions. Also, having a presence in the Play-by-Post forum offers much more visibility (potentially attracting new players) than Group Discussions do.

Any news on this, Farcaster? Sorry to be impatient - my players are chompin' at the bit.

[cplmac]

Any news on this, Farcaster? Sorry to be impatient - my players are chompin' at the bit.

I would suggest sending Farcaster a PM or an email about this inquiry. He would probably see it sooner.

[I. J. Thompson]

I would suggest sending Farcaster a PM or an email about this inquiry. He would probably see it sooner.

I actually have done. No dice, though. But I see him on the boards all the time, so I thought maybe this was the better route. Although, does the list of who's online (at the bottom of the Forums mainpage) indicate who's on the forums, or just who is on the entire site, overall?

[cplmac]

On the site overall. Plus, I know that he gets tons of PMs, emails, and what have you, that it takes a while for him to get through them all.

[Farcaster]

I have been giving this consideration. The forums do offer some perks over discussion groups in terms of functionality. The biggest are:
1) Being able to jump to the last post you read in a thread.
2) Being able to add attachments.

That being the case, I think it would be a good idea to have some sort of functionality for groups that feel they need a forum for their play-by-post or group. Unfortunately, I didn't plan originally on porting this functionality, so it means I have to go back and do some conversion. That said, when the forums for social groups is back in place, only community supporters will be able to create one. As the discussion groups now support dice rolling, having a full forum -- listed in the main forum list on the front page -- is a perk as opposed to the only way to run PBP now.

[I. J. Thompson]

Thank you for the reply, Farcaster! Actually, having now brought my group over, I'm cool with using Group Discussions for Play by Post - with the Campaign Invitations forum in place, I can see that having a 'visible' PbP forum isn't that big of a deal. However, having a print-friendly version of a Group Discussion would be very desirable. Could this be possible?

[Farcaster]

However, having a print-friendly version of a Group Discussion would be very desirable. Could this be possible?

I'll look into that. If it was in RSS format would that be helpful?

[I. J. Thompson]

I'll look into that. If it was in RSS format would that be helpful?

I just did a little reading into RSS feeds (I didn't already know what they are), and I think that's a little more than the doctor ordered!

The perfect thing would just be a 'show printable version' like these very forums have. In the past (on other boards), when an in-character thread of ours reaches 500 posts, I'll click on 'print view', copy all the text (including usernames and timestamps), drop it into a word processor for formatting, and turn the thread into a pdf book for easy reading. I know I could simply copy all the text in a Discussion, but a 'print view' has the advantage of eliminating all the unwanted page elements, like headers, footers, avatars, sigs, and whatnot (plus, you get many more posts-per-page in a print view than you do on the web!).

So, that's where I'm coming from... sorry if I was unclear!