Guide to Creating and Managing a Group

[Garooch]

To Start: It's easy to simply create a group. But helping it thrive requires a bit of attention and thought. As the "Group Creator", you will be responsible for the group, and the group is tied to you. You have the ability to assign any group members as a "Group Administrators" to help you. The Administrators will have the same powers to manage the group as you, so choose wisely. To insure the group has some continuity, I strongly suggest you assign at least 1 administrator as soon as you can. If no one is available, please contact one of the Site Administrators (to fill in). Please list all Administrators in the Text Box (see below).

To create a group, simply go to the main Group page, and click on "Create a Group" (top right hand link). From there you will access the group set up screen. You can then choose a NAME, assign an AVATAR, and write an to make the group private DESCRIPTION for the group. the software will assign a URL.

When setting up the group, it is possible to make the group private. It is not possible to change this status later. We generally discourage private groups, because we've observed many private groups ferment mischief. However there may be some good reasons for private groups. If you decide your group should be private, please make sure one of the site administrators is a member. This way, nobody can make unfounded accusations.


Group Features: You will then have several choices as to the features of the group (don't worry, you can always change these features later). They are, from the top to bottom as they will appear on your group page:

Text Box: This box can be used as a permanent message to the group. It can also be used for an appropriate graphic or widget, which will make your group more enjoyable to visit. See some of the widgets placed on the Group Index page as examples. Note that some widgets (the more complicated ones that constantly need to refresh info from another site) may slow down your page.

Discussion Forum: This is a link of group discussions, that link to the discussion pages themselves. You will have a choice of showing from 3 to 20 discussions. I suggest either 10 or 20. It will make it easier for members to access the discussions.

Comments Wall: This is a new feature, and similar to the comments wall found on your "MyPage".

RSS Feed: I don't suggest using this, as it has a tendency to slow down the page.



Promoting the Group: There are 4 ways to promote the group:

Invitations: Inviting friend is a great idea. You can either do it by word of mouth, or by sending out invitations. You have the capability to send out invites to individuals through
1) their email addresses
2) addresses on Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, GMail or AOL Mail
3) addresses imported from Microsoft Outlook, Apple Address Book, .CSV, etc.
4) to your friends list on Ning. Please note that your friends list spans all Ning sites, so if you send out a bulk mailing, it might be construed as spamming.

Tags: Tags are key words that describe the content of the group. They allow web users to use search engines to find your group. The more appropriate tags, the better. Please set each tag within "quotation marks", and separate each tag with a comma. Some appropriate tags may be: "BOOMER", "SENIOR", "HUMOR", IRONY", "POLITICS", " CURRENTEVENTS", "DISCUSSION", "ENTERTAINMENT", "PHOTOGRAPHY", "GRAPHICS", "SELFHELP"

Feature on the Main Page: You can set the group Avatar to be seen on the main page as a Featured Group. I would like to rotate these to give anyone a chance.

Groups Index Page: This is a manual index, so please email me as to any updates in your group's name or status.

Best of luck, and let a Site Administrator know if there are any questions or issues.

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