Groups and group budgets

Multi-Groupification:
Why should Av’s only be able to join one group? That has been done in all other games, which allows for a very small community to develop each single group, but it does not promote a greater sense of community to all users. If any thing, it fragments the society as new users come in and feel alienated. Dark Ages of Camelot has gotten one step closer by allowing “alliances” to be formed, which is basically creating a group of groups, but this still keeps some in and some out. I really liked having that IM to everyone, which we had in Linden World, although it served a different purpose because we didn’t have the find command that we have now . If we can join multiple groups, our resources increase quickly because we have access to more and more people. The other people in SL are our greatest resource; chances are that someone has tried to do something that we are having problems with and hopefully they will be helpful enough to shareJ. Think of it like a community network based on the Internet, by joining multiple groups, we create redundant networks that will support us, and will foster a stronger sense of community.
Implementation:
First of all you would need to have control over who you were saying what to. Something like a dialogue box that allowed you to place checks next to the groups that you want to send the message out to. It would also be nice, when you get a message from someone in your group, for the system to cross reference the groups the message went out to, with the list of groups you are in, and then set up the chat automatically to go out to all the groups that both you and the sender are a part of. It would also need to check for redundancy, so that you would not get the same message multiple times by being in the same groups as the original sender.

Group Formation:
I think there should be at least two, if not three ways to form groups.

The first type of group would be one that everyone should be able to join, no invitation, no nothing, just anyone can join. Mostly beginning Avs, who were attempting to get an understanding of what is going on, would probably use this; it would also help them to develop some connections when they first entered the world. An excellent example of this can be found in the MUD Medievia. This web link (www.medievia.com/tour/newbie.html) takes you to a page that contains a part of a tour through the life of one adventurer through its realms, the important part is down at the bottom of the page. It is in the very beginning of his career, and basically he joins a newby clan, which is open to all.
Second is where you actively seek membership. You go to the group after having spent sometime with them and ask one of the members to sponsor you.
Third is invite only, where the group seeks you out.

The second and third could exist in SL easily today, since they are merely variants of each other. It would be nice though, if there were separate classes of groups so that someone could look at a profile of a group and know how to join. The first one is possible, however it is harder to do, since it would be needed to pass on by word of mouth, also it takes the group leader (which may be a group setting) being on at the same time that you are to be let into a group.