Help » Creating and editing group forums

How do I create forums for my group?

Navigate to your Your Stuff » Groups and click the edit button (pencil icon) next to the group's name that you want to add forums to. You will be taken to the group's management overview page. Choose the "forums" link in the sidebar (at the bottom of the page on mobile.)

Once on the forum editing page for your group, find and click the "Add Forum" button.

Your new forum will need a unique name, as no two forums can have the same one. A description is optional but often useful to help your members find the appropriate board at a quick glance.

Next you will need to choose whether the board is IC (In Character) or OOC (Out Of Character). The most common distinction between the two is that IC boards are primarily used for roleplays, and OOC boards are for... everything else.

To complete the process, choose who can view this particular forum. "Everyone" allows non-members of the group, including unregistered visitors, to read the forums. "Members only" restricts viewing to those who have joined and been accepted into the group. Your group's privacy settings will always take priority over this choice. A top secret group's forum cannot be viewed by non-members, even if you save it as being viewable by all.

Be sure to save your forum by clicking the "Create Forum" button. Your forum is now ready to be posted in!

How do I edit forums for my group?

Once you've created your forums, you can go back to edit them any time you like. Navigate to your Your Stuff » Groups and click the edit button (pencil icon) next to the group's name that you want to add forums to. You will be taken to the group's management overview page. Choose the "forums" link in the sidebar (at the bottom of the page on mobile.)

Click the pencil icon () next to a forum to change its name, or make it a sub-forum of another forum. Click the trash can icon () next to a forum to delete it.

Clicking on the forum's name will immediately take you to the forum page where you can read, post and reply to topics. You can't make any edits to the forum here, as it's no longer in the admin area.

Clicking on the "Edit" icon will take you to a page similar to the one when you created the forum. You're free to change every aspect of the forum here, including the name and visibility settings.

Clicking on "Delete" allows you to remove the forum and every single topic and reply inside that forum. This cannot be undone so make sure this is what you want! You will need to confirm this action before it goes through.

How do I reorder my group forums?

From the group forum editing page, just click and drag! Or, if you are on a touch screen device that does not support dragging, use the up/down arrows ( ).

When you've got them arranged the way you want them, click "Save changes"

What is the "Official Chat Topic" and how do I use it?

Many groups have one main topic for most of their OOC chatter. As these topics tend to be very active, group members' notifications get spammed terribly, resulting in too many notifications and all kinds of strange behavior on the homepage.

Designating a topic as the "Official Chat Topic" means only a very limited number of notifications will be generated by activity in it, so your members don't end up with broken homepages. Only one topic can be the official chat topic at a time.

In order to create a chat topic, you need to choose an existing topic or create a new one first. If you don't have one yet, head over to your forum of choice and post a topic.

1. Navigate to your Your Stuff » Groups
2. Click the edit button (pencil icon) next to the group's name.
3. You will be taken to the group's management overview page. Choose the "forums" link.
4. Switch to the "Forum Settings" tab at the top.
5. Click the "Select chat topic" button.
6. Type the topic's name into the search bar and wait for the results to show. Find your chat topic in the list, click it to select it, then click "Save chat topic" to confirm.
7. Congratulations, you now have your official chat topic!

There's a second benefit to designating an official chat topic for your group -- it activates the "Quick Chat Launch" widget for your group, allowing you to put a button on any group page or sidebar that whisks people to your main chat topic.

What is the "content filter" and how do I use it?

Group content filters are a tool to help combat member forgetfulness when it comes to words or phrases people might commonly use with their adult friends, and so sometimes accidentally let slip in all-ages forums.

You can define a list of words or phrases that will automatically be starred out on your group forums, event comments and announcement comments. Your particular list of words to filter doesn't even need to be in English!

Navigate to your Your Stuff » Groups and click the edit button (pencil icon) next to the group's name that you want to add forums to. You will be taken to the group's management overview page. Choose the "Forum Settings" link in the sidebar (at the bottom of the page on mobile.)

Type your comma separated list of words into the large text area titled "Content Filtering"

To turn on this feature, you will need to put a check next to "Enable the content filters (automatic starring out of bad words)"

You can also put the filter into aggressive mode, which will cause the filter to hide your list of no-no words even if the words appear inside of another word. Be very careful when using this setting, as it can lead to unexpected results (i.e. cl***ical music)!

What are forum titles?

Titles allow you to organize your group forums into various categories. For example, you may wish to place the title "RP Forums" and then cluster your IC forums underneath that title, while your OOC forums are put under the heading "OOC Socializing"

Navigate to your Your Stuff » Groups and click the edit button (pencil icon) next to the group's name that you want to add forums to. You will be taken to the group's management overview page. Choose the "forums" link in the sidebar (at the bottom of the page on mobile.)

From this page, click the "Add title" button. Give your title a name, click "Create Title" and then drag or click the arrow buttons to place the title where you want it in your list of forums.