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FollowingHim

FollowingHim

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I'm running an experiment with the Central Texas crowd as the subject, hope you don't mind. Chris' list of other services he was using to try and organise a local group made me think "surely we can set up an opt-in group here". And with a bit of fiddling, it is possible. I really don't mind at all if you choose not to use this, it's just an experiment so we know what is possible. But if you wouldn't mind seeing if it works, I'd really appreciate it.

If you go to your preferences (hereor from the dropdown under your name, top right corner of the page), you should see an option for "Local Group". Choose "Central Texas" and click "Save Changes" at the bottom of the page.

It will take up to a minute for the forum to recognise the change, but then you should see a new forum category on the main page called "Local Groups", including a forum for "Central Texas". If you unselect the option in your preferences, this should disappear again after another minute.

Does this work?

Would it be useful, or a waste of time because you really need a date-scheduling-program and a dedicated forum really doesn't help much at all? (Be completely honest here, tell me if it's no good as I'd prefer not to waste time setting up something that wouldn't be used).

I could set up as many local groups as we like using this method, and everyone would only see the groups they opted into. You can select multiple groups (at present I've got a second "location 2", but it doesn't have a forum so won't actually do anything, it just shows that if you hold down the control button you can choose more than one group). It is also possible to ban people from joining local groups, either on a case-by-case basis or following a wider rule, but by default the way I've set it up basically anyone who's on the forum and interested can opt in.
 
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FollowingHim said:
I could set up as many local groups as we like using this method, and everyone would only see the groups they opted into. You can select multiple groups (at present I've got a second "location 2", but it doesn't have a forum so won't actually do anything, it just shows that if you hold down the control button you can choose more than one group). It is also possible to ban people from joining local groups, either on a case-by-case basis or following a wider rule, but by default the way I've set it up basically anyone who's on the forum and interested can opt in.
Click to expand...

At the Summer Retreat we talked about some local forum threads to organize local meetups and fellowship. This looks perfect. SC, GA and NC would make a good group as we have already organized one small gathering since Summer Retreat. There are at least five families/persons within two hours of us that I know of...
 
Ok, there should now be a subforum for SC, GA and NC. See if you can join it as per the above instructions.

The forum software isn't really designed to do this easily, and there are a few steps to make each new forum work, so if you can't see it when you should, or can when you shouldn't, or see it but can't post, let me know. I'm making this system up as I go along and will just have missed some option somewhere.
 
For date scheduling, doodle.com is a nice free tool.

@FollowingHim, if you want to set up regional groups for the U.S. before specific ones are requested, I suggest the Nine Nations of North America as a possible guide or starting point.

Here are their names as given by the author who identified them, along with my suggestions of what may be more acceptable or familiar in some cases:
  • New England
  • The Foundry (a.k.a. the Rustbelt)
  • Dixie
  • The Breadbasket (a.k.a. the Plains)
  • The Islands (a.k.a. South Florida & Caribbean)
  • Mexamerica (a.k.a. South-Southwest)
  • Ecotopia (a.k.a. Pacific Coast)
  • The Empty Quarter (a.k.a. the Mountain West)
  • Quebec
Of course, smaller groups may wish to self-identify within some of these, but I like the idea of starting large.
 
Interesting idea @mystic, but it's a rather involved process to set up each subforum as the software isn't designed to have user-selectable forums, I've only just worked out a somewhat complex manual way of doing it. So I'd prefer to just set up forums for groups that actually want them, as requested, rather than waste time setting up a ton of forums that never get used.
 
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