Separate Autonomous Communities within 1 Installation
 

I'm looking to build a vB site that is a hellish permissions nightmare. I'll try and explain it and hopefully I can get some ideas on if this has been done before and if there is maybe a mod for it, or how hard it would be to create a mod for it.

First of all, I want to separate the forum into "Groups" .. meaning we have Group 1 and Group 2 and Group 3. Each group can only see their own discussions. Easy, so far, right? Well, I don't want any group to know how many other groups there are and what their names are.

Second, registration will be turned off. I will have 1 Group Leader for each group and they will be able to add new users to their group ONLY and create new forums that are only accessible to their groups. The group leaders cannot know about the other groups on the site.

Third, I want the Group Leaders to be able to create new forums for their group.

Fourth, I want to integrate PhotoPost into this.

If anyone has heard of anything remotely resembling this concept, I'd love to hear about it. I'm a bit afraid to get into code customization because I've been out of the programming loop for a few years.

Fun, I am looking for the very same add on. But it looks like there is nothing yet.

How would group leaders be created? Would the process be automatic, or would you manually add each group leader?

The group leader (in my book), would be the creator of the group.

Hm. Unfortunately, vbulletin.com/.org will not allow the release of any modification that provides the functionality that you desire.

Excuse me? They will not allow it?!

No. In the past there was a hack that allowed "forum moderators" access to their personal admincp where they could edit forum settings and maintain their autonomous forum. In the end vbulletin.com/.org decided to not allow the publishing of this hack on their sites.

Your hack which allows private groups which maintain forums via their own presonal admincp autonomous from one another falls within the same category as the previously disallowed hack. So, unfortunately, such a hack could not be published on vbulletin.org.

Interesting stuff.

Well, ok. Here is the run down of what my hack would (=will) do:

1) Forum members can setup their own "groups".
2) A group has a title, description, maybe tags.
3) A group can contrain threads/posts and probably pictures.
4) A group can have three modi: public and open, public and invite only, private.
5) There will be a directory of all public groups.
6) Group home will be a collection of what is going on (threads, members, pictures).


It would be nice if someone from vbulletin.com/.org could step up here and confirm that this hack is against regulations and state why that is the case. ;-) I think there are far more advanced hacks on this forum, so what's the deal with this?

Its not a matter of more advanced hacks Till...I think it falls uncomfortably close to a breach of their licence agreement is all...i'm sure a staff member will either confirm that or give you the answer properly eventually :)

You mean, because forum hosting is not allowed?

probably.....because you could create something similar to invisionfree.com, call it vbulletinfree.com and allow people to create vbulletin forums on your site (its not exact comparision but still similar)

No, I am not after seperate forums really. I want members of my community to be able to form what I call groups - similar to Flickr's pool idea. I checked out Zoints (local) last night and it looks like it does everything I want - and more.

So I don't see this "legal" problem.

Basically, if one instance of vB appears to the users to be multiple separate boards, it would be considered being "Modifications to the software or database to circumvent the one-license-one-board rule". This is what you seem to be asking for.

I wonder if such a hack has been publiced anyhow? I mean on another website than bulletin.org?

Not that I know.

I am not sure if Zoints does everything yet. It does a lot of what we need, I am not sure about the groups. We are actually tinkering with the idea of building an external app and briding the user authorization (and essentially administration) with vbulletin.

The group idea I have primarily revolves around how Flickr treats groups/pools. So I still don't see a license issue here.

Last but not least, I'd like a staff member to comment where exactly this could be a problem and so on. I have yet to hear a comment - I even enquired using the form on vbulletin.com and I am yet waiting for a response.

Wetwired gave the correct answer.

What is the link to your vB.com thread?