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The new Groups feature that was introduced with Pligg 1.0 provides a lot of new functionality for Pligg sites that will enhance how Pligg is used by social networks along with several other types of sites. This article will outline how Pligg Groups work, possible uses for the feature and details about the settings available to configure Groups from the Pligg admin panel.

 

• 1About Groups
• 2How Groups Work
  • 2.1Finding a Group
  • 2.2Creating a Group
  • 2.3Group Privacy Types
  • 2.4Submit a Group Story
  • 2.5Share a Story
  • 2.6Group Voting

About Groups

Pligg Groups was originally a general idea that a few dedicated Pliggers tossed around, and at the time it was conceived as a way for users to connect with each other on Pligg websites to discuss and share ideas. The idea was then changed so that Groups could be used as a more general tool to not only group users but also group user content. Rather than just giving users a way to join a member list we decided to give users a way to share stories, which is the best way to describe how Group works.

When submitting a story to Pligg you are submitting your story to a general upcoming que where your story competes to get the attention among several categories, many stories and a variety of users. Your story could potentially be lost because of the amount of content being submitted to a site, and more importantly those who might be the best target audience for that story may never see it. Here's where Groups comes into play.

Lets say that story you submitted is about a great new Photoshop plugin. You categoriezed it under Art (because the site didn't have any category better suited than that) and then tagged it with words like Adobe, software, imaging, photoshop, etc. Now lets say that this site has a Group created called "Adobe Users", you can join that group and either share the story or submit it to their upcoming page. By doing that you are highlighting what you think would be a valuable article to a group of users who might take interest in it an help vote it up to the site's homepage.

How Groups Work

Groups function on some level as mini-Pliggs within your Pligg site. They allow users to create their own little area to manage stories and users in a simplified way that moderators are able to edit the normal articles. Group admins are able to specify how many votes a story needs to become published, who can join, who can see the articles and who can modify stories or change the group settings.

Finding a Group

The Groups overview page allows you to sort Groups by their creation date, number of members and name.

Creating a Group

If you can't find a group that fits your interest you can easily create a group if the site has this feature enabled. You will only need to fill out one page with a Group Title, Description, Group Privacy Type, and the number of votes required to publish a story. Optionally you can enter in email addresses of friends you want to invite to the group and they will receive an email letting them know about the Group.

Group Privacy Types

There are 3 privacy options for groups. These were designed to give a variety of privacy settings to fit most needs.

• Public: New members do not need to be manually approved. The stories and member list are viewable by anyone.
• Private: New users must be approved. Member list and articles are kept private. Only the founder's username will be displayed.
• Restricted: New members must be approved. Stories and member list are public.

Submit a Group Story

Submitting a story to a Group is the same process as submitting a normal article to the website. The only difference is that a new drop down menu will appear in the second submit step where you can select which group (that you belong to) you want to submit the story to. After you finish submitting the story it will appear on BOTH the group upcoming page AND the main website's upcoming page.

Share a Story

Let's say that you find a story that hasn't been submitted to a group you belong to, but you think it deserves to be bookmarked in the groups "Shared" space. Click on the Group Share link below the story and then select the group you want to share the story with and the story will then appear on the Group's "Shared" page. Think of it like social bookmarking, where you share bookmarks with everyone else in the group. Please note that you can only share stories with groups that you have an active membership with.

Group Voting

When you create a group you must specify how many votes a story needs to appear on the Group Published page. This number can be different from the website's rule for publishing, but it won't cause a Published Group story to become published on the main website.