I thought I would try something new. The "Groups" feature of the forum is not used much, only for the Moderator group really.
So I have created Political Party groups to go along with the new party forums. The party forums will remain open to all for now, but ...possibly at some point they might be closed to only people belonging to the related Group.
The Groups are "open" groups so you can freely join or leave any of the groups, and even join more than one group.
I need a group moderator for each group. Really doesn't mean much, just means you can kick someone out of the group or add people to the group.
But since the groups at this point have no special permissions doens't have much affect. They are just something fun, I will list what groups a user belongs to on there profile page and on there avatar details in the forums.
The Groups are listed here:
http://www.canadaka.net/modules.php?nam ... le=groupcp
and are:
CKA Liberals
CKA Conservatives
CKA NDP
CKA Green
CKA Bloc
What about CKA Freethinkers?
I like the order you put them in Trev
Great idea!
But what about the CKA Socialists?
There could me a hundreds of possible groups. For now i will keep it to the main political parties.
It seems that the group moderator has to approve each application for the group. So picking group moderators for each group is a little more important.
The group moderator will receive an email when someone has applied to the group.
I guess people don't care about this feature, only 2 people have joined groups.
So just bumping this thread.
Joined the conservitive group though i'm not positive that its the same as a US conservitive.
**UPDATE**
In an effort to promote and intigrate the "Groups" into the forums more, I have added "Group Icons".
So each group will have its own logo image/icon. This image will be displayed beside your avatar in the forums and on your profile page.
Clicking the icon will goto the group page listing its members.
Along with the Political Groups, there are private groups for mods, news mods, and
CKA Radio Dj's.
How about a "CKA undecided" group...
I had to limit the group list to only show 2, because since im currently moderator of all groups, it listed 6 group icons beside my avatar, heh.
Which reminds me, I will need a Group leader for each of the political groups. Bascially all you do is approve or deny membership to that group.
I think I will abstain from adding this to my member info box for the time being. Although I am very much a liberal supporter I am also free to follow my own decisions on many issues.
I am very respectful of other posters positions. We have the right in this country to express how we feel on anything even if someone differs from your point of view. In my opnion the forums are for friendly debate and gives an idea what other canadians are thinking. It does not mean you must change your opinion to someone elses, insist on someone to change to your own or to the staius quo if you don't agree. I find it difficult to express myself in some of the forums because some posters do not seem to understand this. (some to the point of resorting to personal attacks) It seem to me that if you put the logo of a political affiliation next to your name, it will be like putting a target up for these people. As a result it will be near to imposable to get any point across.
Besides I think my current signature gives a clue where my political mind set is.
it is completely optional, just another fun feature.
with more people joing the forum political groups and the party forums slowly starting to see some action, I am considering making posting in the party forums restricted to group members.
Because it seems that people can't follow the rules themselfs and it will be ahuge headache to moderate them. So I other do this or get more moderators...
I could do it 2 ways for the groups option. Make the forums readable by everyone, but only group members can post. Or make them only viewable and postable by group members.
I think a problem is that people see the topic in the recent topics list and don't look to see what forum it is in. So maybe another visual clue would help. I could try making some custom thing to make CPC topics blue, liberal topics red, NDP orange, ext.
comments, thoughts?