What does it require to start a new group?
Groups are a lot of fun, and a great way to meet new people and make things happen in town. The Boston Film movement site, Beanywood, is now able to create groups based on professional interests, projects, discussion events, and on and on. Given the interest in creating and leading them, we just have a couple basic requirements. We ask for the to-be moderators to be willing to,
- Regularly check the group to process membership approvals. While everyone in the group is notified when someone new joins, posts a bulletin, etc. there's no notifications when someone new wants to join.
- Make sure that ONLY people who fit the group (e.g. say actors joining an actors group) with well filled out profiles (including Bio and Experience/Training), and portrait pictures are approved to join your group.
- Have an actual game plan of what you want to do with the group, that ideally but not necessarily involves real life events (say actors outings, or an opportunity to meet a particular film that is showing). We want lively happening groups, and we’ll support those thoroughly.
How to Use and Manage Groups
For all users:
Bulletins: Group bulletins are visible to everyone, including non-group members. When a new bulletin is posted, each group member will receive an email notification that a new group bulletin has been posted. It will also appear on the front page for all users, on the left of the screen, in the box that says Latest Group Bulletins. Fantastic way to get any word out to the world of Beanywood visitors.
Forums: Each group also has an associated forum that can only be read by group members and is a great location for pursuing dialogue and setting up events. Nobody is notified with new forum messages. But when you post a new forum message or reply to one, you can choose to be subscribed to the topic, meaning you are alerted by email if anyone replies to that particular topic. Pretty handy if there's something you're really interested in. You can also, within reason, upload files or images associated with the topic.
For group leaders:
Approving new users: If you're a moderator, and a particular user has a well filled out profile, and fits the group, please approve them to join. It requires the moderator to just regularly visit the group – once there, clicking on “Moderator Functions,” choosing “Users waiting for activation,” and the clicking “Activate” next to the appropriate users. It's all pretty obvious. Feel completely free asking users to update their profiles or uploading a portrait image if they do not qualify at first.
Changing your Group's Info: You might decide that the Group's title doesn't quite capture the group's purpose, the description of it is not quite right, or you want to upload a sexy group logo. To change any of these click on "Moderator Functions" and then "Edit Group Info." Important: If you want to substantially change the group title and purpose, please send us quick message to give us a heads up. Group logos should be 128x128 pixels.
Inviting more people to your group: Once in the group, click on the menu option that says "Standard Functions," and then "Invite your friends." They could already be Beanywood members, or outsiders. But this tool will only allow you to invite one person at a time. If you want to invite a lot of people to join Beanywood, and your group, you can use the far more powerful tool here which allows you load your friends from almost any address book known to man (Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook), and then add a note inviting them to join your group.
Trackback(0)
|
TrackBack URI for this entry
