Creating Groups

Gold and Silver members get to create and moderate Groups.

You can choose to create a group as either an Open Discussion Group or as a 'Creative Intelligence' Alliance.

Open Discussion Groups

Open Discussion Groups can have an unlimited amout of members, and consist of a discussion board based on a particular theme. You can have

Your discussion group be either public or private. If you choose to have a private group, only members can read the messages.

As Administrator, you have the ability to see all the information about your group, including those people who have chosen to sign up as members. When the administrator clicks the members button, the list of past and current members has additional options, depending on the status of each individual.

From this interface, you can approve, ban, drop, or reinstate people.

To change the basic descriptions and text used in your group, select the group admin option from the secondary navigation bar (that bar is either yellow or green depending on type of group). From there you can choose to either edit this group (change the group information) or to deactivate the groups (use sparingly, or you may find yourself without any members).

'Creative Intelligence' Alliance

If you choose to set up your groups as a CI Alliance, you have all the options described above, plus you have a group calendar.

All CI Alliances are private.

Tips

1. Know what your focus is before opening your group. Choose a descriptive name.
2. Have a description ready so that you can take advantage of being listed in the New Groups section of the home pages and the Search Page. Potential new members will usually only choose to join a group if there is something compelling that speaks to them, and if there is any question left in their minds by the name of your group, they will look to the short description to clear it up.
3. Decide on posting guidelines for your group and make sure they are included in the appropriate box so that they automatically appear above the form each time a member composes a message