The ability to create "Groups" in the Community Space (as we understand them) do not always equate to a successful community. In fact, we have found them (at times) to work against the growth of the community, so we're still in the planning process on how to do this the proper way in the future.
A little history...
A number of years ago we used to have this feature, but it never quite worked to our liking, and furthermore, communities became littered with groups that only had one or a few messages in them, which in turn created a poor user experience. One need only pay a visit to Yahoo User Groups to see 100,000+ "groups" that sit stagnant because somebody created the group and maybe a few folks came, but nobody stayed. Now, in Yahoo User Groups, it only makes it that much harder to find a Yahoo User Group that you want to hang around in because there are endless husks of former groups that never really sparked much particpation.
A little bit about how we think about the challenge of this feature...
Our belief in the power of proper Community Management pivots on the sense of operational ownership that a Community Management team has over the community. To wit, if there is a board that does not see 5-10 posts a day, then it may be time to roll that board up into another board. On the flipside, if a board sees more than 40 posts a day, it may be time to split that board into two boards that are defined by a more granular sense of purpose. Can you count on your users, business groups, or interested parties to commit to a board's level of participation?
An anecdotal aside...
At present, I am working with an Enterprise customer that is migrating off of another platform. They have in excess of 300+ boards, many of which have less than 5 posts. These boards were started / created by specific business units, but did not have the level of commitment or business process associated with them that would keep them "popping". So now I am working with the customer to roll up the content of those dead boards. We're figuring out a new governance program for the Community Management team that they can use that will hold business units accountable to their operational responsibility when it comes to their contributions / suggestions the community. Put simply, if you want to create new "boards" (groups) for the community, you have to own them and make sure they are part of the community's overall success.
What you can do today....
So, to that end, I would like to come back to how the Lithium application presently works. There are three states that a board can exist in:
1. A fully open board that any person can see, even anonymous users that are not logged in.
2. A board that is restricted by permissions. This is what we call a “private board”, and not only do you have to be logged in, but you have to have the specific role that allows you to see this private board.
3. A hidden board. This is a board that is completely “hidden” in the sense that you would have to know the URL to see it. You can “hide” a board by checking the “hide from lists” box in the admin console.
Hope all of this helps.
