Groups defaults (newbie question)

I'm sure this'll have been asked before, but I couldn't find it anywhere in the on-line help, attempting to search the forums etc.

Background:
Last night I was randomly invited into a group (Elite Dancers I believe).

Now, I heard a whisper somewhere about group owned items and some groups using members as a means to pay for their own tax (a kind of exploit). I'm too new to the world to judge this particular group either way, so I just accepted the join and decided to play it by ear.

When I was building a couple of items earlier, I happened to (eventually) notice that the properties in edit mode for all the items said
Creator: Del Dayton
Owner: Del Dayton
Group: Elite Dancers

Many (but not all) items also had 'share with group' ticked, allowing them to copy,move,edit or delete my object.

Once I noticed this, I set the group property on all of the items I'd created/modified since then to 'none'.

Can this be done automatically? I don't know whether being in a group is a good thing or not, but allowing them to modify my own objects (which they didn't, but could) without me realising it, isn't!

Secondly, is there a list of all group deeded objects so that you can be forewarned of anytax bills?

Ta!

(I'm sure this group must be a nice enough bunch, and they probably have no ill intentions whatsoever. But I've left them for now to prevent confusion, whilst also considering the fact that I don't even know who they are or why they invited me )

What you noticed is a normal function of having a group set to "Active" while you build. As you rez items, the name of your active group will appear in the properties. As I understand it, this doesn't affect the object security.

"Share with group", on the other hand, *does* allow group members to mod/copy/del the object, so you should ensure that this option isn't enabled.

The default for a freshly rezzed object is not to share with the group.

If you don't want your new group to appear in object properties, you can go to Edit > Groups, select None, and Activate. You'll still belong to the group, but the group title won't appear in your name or object properties.

Hope that helps.

PS., it's generally a good idea to decline membership offers from people/groups you don't know. Often there's a membership fee involved or group taxes.

Yeah, I've left a couple of groups because I logged on and found out I'm suddenly paying group taxes and no one asked if I wanted to!

That is something I hope they tweek in 1.2. I haven't read up much on it but that would be my concern as well as many others.

never ever ever join a group unless you know the people very well and have a reason to join like sharing land or objects.

Great, that clears that mystery up

Thanks for the guidance folks.

Think I'd inherited the "A group? Hmm, sure" mindset from Everquest.

i was under the impression for the longest time that i could only belong to one group.

It's worth noting that will not be any mandated group liabilities in the 1.2 release.

Several updates back, people would make groups just for the heck of it so that you could have cool titles. This was fun, but it inevitably created a lot of cruft.

The group tax/object support thing cuts down on a lot of the aforementioned cruft, is one thing.

(speaking of which, I should go check my groups once I get home, if I'm not too exhausted...)