Force users to secondary usergroup?

[djr]

Hi all,

Background:
Since our start in october 2001 (vB in feb. 2003) we have grown considerably as a community, consisting of three different websites and forums: PocketPC, Smartphone and Symbian, with more than 50000 members as of march 2005 (and still rapidly growing). The websites are our storefront, the forums are a mixture of those three communities. So three different frontends, one discussion board with a lot of different forums with general (overlap) or more specific threads (based on the content of the site, e.g. PPC, MS Smartphone, Symbian).

Idea
The forums and more specific the permission system is a disaster right now and we really would like to change that for the better. Our idea is to use the secondary usergroup system to differentiate the three communities. So a Pocket PC secondary usergroup has 'permissions' to see the Pocket PC forums, a Smartphone secondary usergroup member has permissions to see the MS Smartphone forums etcetera. Since the secondary usergroup system is all about letting the user for him/herself decide which to join, he or she is ofcourse also able to join all groups and get the full picture. Further on, some forums will always be viewable regardless of their secondary usergroup setting (think: community news, announcements, etc.).

Because of the huge amounts of posts and threads with this member count, people are starting to complain about the information glut That's why we think the secondary usergroup route is the way to go.

Problems
However, we bump into a few walls and I can't for the life of me seem to find any information on fellow vB admins with the same idea. I also couldn't find any hacks or information about this topic. This could be meaning the idea is just plain stupid and definitely NOT the way to do it. In that case we'd like to hear other people's suggestions.

Our questions:

• How on earth are we going to convince 50000 people to join one or more of the secondary usergroups (but a least one). Is there a way to force them into choosing this? (redirect to specific page with explanation and setting the usergroup)
• Will there be any permission pitfalls we haven't foreseen?
• Is there a better route to do this? Or is the idea valid and worth pursueing?

Thanks for reading and hopefully something good will come out if this. If necessary, a paid job to write (a) hack(s) for this idea can and will be be considered, but ofcourse we'd prefer a freebie

Thanks,
- djr

[Marco van Herwaarden]

1. I haven't got a clue.
2. Yes there will be. Which? I was i could already tell you.
3. No, yes.

The way of using public joinable Membergroups seems the best way to handle this in my opinion. You could make members join the groups a bit easier by showing on the main index something like: You are member of group A, You are NOT a member of B,.....

If you make this in a way people would notice, they might be checking the Membergroups.

[Reeve of shinra]

If you could query thier posts, perhaps you can automatically add them to the groups for hte forums they post in most.

[djr]

For option 1 I might have an idea how to pull this off by piggybacking on the is_member_of() function. If not in any of our defined usergroups, then redirect them to a special page with explanation and then to their User CP. This could be called from forumhome and showthread, amongst others. IMHO this is the way to do that, but I'd like a little confirmation before I hack that (want to keep the boards as pristine as possible, so minimal hacking).

I'm kinda worried about the permission pitfalls, but I guess we'll just have to wait for this that happen and hope for the better. I can't foresee anything right now, but the permission stuff is kinda tricky to say the least.

@ Reeve: querying the post table is a little troublesome, as there's no REAL indication whether those posts in these forums actually represent their preference. The latter two communities (Smartphone and Symbian) were added later, so we had a 1 year span where everybody was just posting in the Pocket PC community.

Thanks for the heads up and still interested in other opinions.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Originally Posted by Reeve of shinra

If you could query thier posts, perhaps you can automatically add them to the groups for hte forums they post in most.

Not sure but don't think that could work. Since the Usergroup you want them to signup to is controlling access to that forum, the member can't have posted in those forums yet because he don't have access. After he signs up for the Membergroup, there is no use in bringing it to their attention anymore.

But maybe i didn't understand it right