Suggested group functions

I've been speaking with LL for some time about group needs. Elf Clan has become so large that enhanced group functions are no longer a desire-- they're a necessity for proper operation. The functions we most desire are summed up as:

1. MORE GROUPS. 15 simply isn't enough. In informal polls we've taken, the standard thought is we need 100-200 groups... or even turn it from static to dynamic format (ie, unlimited groups).

2. GROUP ANNOUNCEMENT. Currently there is absolutely no effective way for a founder or officer of a group to contact the group entire. The Group Announcement would be like a single-message IM that would have a limit of no less than 1024 characters and would go out to ALL group members, both online and (if offline) to email. This feature should be available only to officers, not standard members.

3. GROUP NEWSLETTER. This would basically be a notecard that could be sent to all group members at once and would be stored in the Notecard folder. If they're online, they'll get the newsletter immediately, just like any notecard. If they are offline, they will receive an email note telling them the NAME OF THE GROUP that sent the newsletter and the NAME of the newsletter so they may easily find it. This feature should be available only to officers, not standard members.

4. GROUP MUTE. Larger groups can create incredible amounts of spam. People should be able to mute group chatter the same way they mute individuals if the chatter becomes excessive. The person should be able to set the mute for "this session only" or "permanent" (recognizing of course that muting a group virtually cuts them off from group contact). Even if a group is muted, members would still receive Group Announcements and Group Newsletter (otherwise, why belong to the group?).

5. TWO TYPES OF GROUP. Currently, groups are set up like a board of directors. Sometimes officers get into place and abuse the group-- and there is no way to oust them from office (the current "recall" system is faulty and often abused). There needs to be a type of group in which the FOUNDER may oust an officer. A founder should never be able to be removed from a group without his/her permission in order to prevent "hostile takeover". If this is implemented, the founder of existing groups should be able to choose which format the group shall take. That format may be changed at decision of founder (if officer-run group is desired) or vote of officers (if founder-run group is desired). Of course, LL should be open to mediating internal group disputes during such a changeover.

We believe these are minimal necessities for group operation and look forward to seeing some form of these implemented. The above concepts are simple and easily implemented (relatively) and would offer groups the functions needed to operate smoothly.

... with a few comments.

1. MORE GROUPS. Amen, brother! 15 is just not even close to enough.

2. GROUP ANNOUNCEMENT. Yes, although I've found a workaround to this lack by establishing "friends" relationships with my group members (which for very large groups can create its own set of problems), and put their calling cards into a group folder. I can select the folder and choose to IM only online members, or all members of the folder. THe drawback to this approach is that there are a few members I haven't managed to get calling cards for yet, so I have to IM them individually. The "voting" function in the group window is another method, but considerably less useful since it can confuse people who think they have to do something (i.e., vote or abstain) when all I want to do is broadcast information.

3. GROUP NEWSLETTER. Excellent idea, and much needed. At present, I open all my group members' profiles and drop a notecard on them, which takes considerable time even for just 20 or 25 members, and can result in errors if I get distracted and close a profile prematurely, or drop a notecard on one twice. I've just been looking at a rather pricy script (NDE's "Giver" that sort of provides this functionality, but it has its own drawbacks (I don't think it's possible to limit the people who "sign up" for distribution by touching the object containing the script, and there does not appear to be a way for the script/object owner to edit the list -- only the individual who touches the object can control whether they are included or not. Also, it does require everyone who should be on the distro to "physically" click the object.) I've thought of creating my own distribution script, but I'm not that good at scripting so it would take me a LONG time to do such a thing.

4. GROUP MUTE. I assume this is for group IMs? Yes, much needed, especially wtth the option for "this session only".

5. TWO TYPES OF GROUPS. I"m not sure why there need to be two kinds of group. WHy should anyone be able to "steal" a group from a founder who's gone to the trouble and expense to create it? Rather, just fix this in the way Wayfinder suggests, so the founder cannot be removed from officer position without his/her consent.

Kat

Yes, both of these work to an extent, but as you mentioned, considerable hassles and drawbacks. The larger the group bets, the more problems. The voting system is currently the only way to get a message to everyone in a group (both online and offline) but it is a "hack" method that as you mentioned, confuses people and notifies them twice on every announcement (both when they receive the announcement, and when they receive announcement of the vote passing/failing). Such is an irritation to members. Groups would greatly benefit by an "Official Announcement" function (again at least 1024 characters) which would be available to group officers only (to prevent spam and other abuse).



The reason is this (and although it doesn't really apply in the case of Elf Clan, I've seen it happen in other groups)-- someone may begin a group with a specific purpose and goal and over time invite other officers to help share administrative duties. Sometimes an officer can become arrogant or abusive of his/her post. That is when a "Founder controlled" group would come in; the founder could simply remove that person as an officer and have done with the problem. Otherwise, under the current system, it is virtually impossible to remove an officer once that person is in place.

Even in secular businesses it is recognized that there sometimes needs to be one person who has final authority in order to keep the business running properly. Currently, groups are organized according to a "board of directors" philosophy... but sole proprietorships have for millenia been an established way of doing business. There is currently no way to run a "proprietorship" on Second Life and at the same time assign other individuals the tools/responsibilities that come with being a group Officer. That is why a second type of group is needed: the "Founder-based" group (sole proprietorship).

Not that every group will use such, but there are certainly many that would benefit from such an arrangement. Even in groups in which current officers work well together and jointly "own" the group-- a proprietorship concept would allow for assigning new officers with the reassurance that they can be removed if they become arrogant or start causing problems. It's just a safeguard for a large and established specific-concept group.

The same thing of course, could be accomplished if a general rule was passed that the Founder of a group can remove any officer-- but some groups may not desire that function. Thus the need for two types of groups-- Founder-based and Officer-based.

I'd suggest two types of groups isn't enough personally.

There are many groups - businesses, land baronies etc. in which a founder with "god like" powers and everyone else with less powers makes a lot of sense.

There are groups like the LSL Wiki Mentors in which there is really no 'power structure' we're all mentors together, we don't own land etc... so the founder happens to be the person that anted up the $100 and although wonderful for thinking of the concept and setting up the group, not really in need of "power" over us. A setting with flat powers would work just fine there.

There are groups such as some of the political parties in NA that need a leader and possibly a hierarchy if they're modelled on current political systems, but need some mechanism to be able to rotate the people smoothly and easily between the various roles.

We might not have businesses other than land barons quite large to need this yet, but many RL businesses have a CEO, CFO, board of directors, MD, section leaders, workers etc. (sometimes with overlap of people) with different groups of authority and responsibility. In particular the CEO and CFO tend to have complimentary authorities and some checks and balance on each other. We certainly have in world businesses with different departments, and the CEO equivalent has to be in all the relevant groups.

Personally I'm not going to going a military group but that kind of hierarchy is different to the business one and is a pretty good model for a number of situations. It's primarily different because there aren't really checks and balances and there's a much clearer chain of command: any captain can order ALL sergeants about for example, whilst the CFO probably actually *can't* order the delivery driver to make an extra drop at the CFO's home, although the driver might be willing to.

I could keep going - but these are enough to illustrate my point I hope. Groups are used for a load of things in SL because flawed though they are they are the only game in town - I've certainly seen set-ups that mimic all of these situations struggling within the existing system. Give us the flexibility to still have something identifiable as a group but with the flexibility to meet at least these and ideally more possible structures so we can set the groups up to meet our needs. Resident-led and resident driven...

I agree with the points you made Eloise.

The reason I mentioned two types of group is basically due to realistic expectations: Linden Lab is so inundated with "projects" that the chance of getting them to tackle something specific is slim and none. Whereas adding a concept of "Founder can boot officers" (thus giving the Founder ultimate power) would be a fairly simple addition, adding all the things you mentioned would likely cause LL to back off and say, "uh... that's quite a bit to tackle".

As an interim, stop-gap measure, a lot of the things you mentioned could be handled within a founder-controlled group through a simple rule: here are your privileges in this group; exceed them and you'll lose officer status.

For groups which need no leadership heirarchy, in which all officers hold equal power, the current system works fairly well (with the one problem that if an officer goes bad, it is pretty much impossible for the other officers to remove that person from office). It has to be voted on by majority of the entire populace (from what I understand)... which almost never happens.

So a simple, quick fix as opposed to a complex fix that very likely would never happen seemed preferable... although certainly if LL were to recognize the importance of groups, your suggestions might be more feasible.

It seems as if LL is paying some attention to groups at this time; before it appeared they simply didn't seem to understand how important groups are to the function of SL. But what impact that will have on actually giving us increased group tools will be revealed with time.

Myself, I'd like to see them at least give us the basic tools now... and then add other things as they get the chance.

OK my idea provides many options within one group structure, and should be user friendly. However, not being a tech type person, I wouldn't know what kind of drain this would have on the asset server etc, so maybe someone who is could add their comments below.

The group would have 5 'levels' of membership which can be renamed to what ever title you care to give them, the same way you can with officer and member currently. 5 is the highest level, 1 the lowest.

You can only edit the permissions of a member of lower level than yourself.

You can only eject a member of a lower level.

You can not invite a member to a higher level than yourself.

The group creator automatically becomes a level 5 member.

This system allows sooo many permutations. If you wanted to create a group of similar structure to the current groups, you can simply invite others as at level 5. This would make all those officers 'even' and unable to eject each other. It also offers the ability of offering all permissions (or any combination/no. of permissions) but at a lower level.

I would imagine the interface to be something like...


------------------ \level------5---------4---------3----------2---------1

permissions

sell grp land

etc

etc


With radio buttons to set up permissions at a different levels. So whadyathink?

I think that is a terrific idea. The question is: could we get LL to implement that concept? The chances would appear bleak... but yeah, this idea would rock.

My recommendation to LL would be to give us at least minimal functionality now, then put your idea together asap (and don't stick it on a back burner). For sure, something needs to be done about groups now.

Linden Lab has already indicated that they are working on a system of "roles" that would break the Officer/Member pair into many pieces (no limit was mentioned on how many) and that certain permissions could be toggled on or off for each.

There is one whole developer assigned to this group renovation task, from what was mentioned. May not sound like much, but that would be enough to make it happen if we are patient.

I layed my own ideas out in the direction LL is pointing, and posted them to my blog. I'm trying to work it out in such a way that it can be incrementally released, starting with groups and moving out from there all the way to object permissions.

But the basic idea should be doable in the short term.

To run a business that can't be abused by officers or stolen from you is required before I would think about creating a group for my business.

As far as businesses are concerned, a corporate structure is complicated because share holders -not officers- actually own the business and they vote the officers in. There is no stock market and so I dunno how this could work without there actually being share holders. However a way where the founder can be secure in thier role as leader would be nessesary for the types of business you will find in second life.

The current groups are like your common student societies and community groups. They rely on the assumption that officers are mature and benevolent. However unlike student associations there is no time limit for officers. I think that an optional time limit would be nice to implement. It would work such that after a certain amount of time, all officers have to be voted back in as officers, or new people could be voted instead.

Goups need the ability to define their own structure. The ability to define a set number of officers and associate titles to the positions would be nice. And I would like to see groups that can define thier own authority heirarchy, with multiple levels of authority

We need different types of groups with different power structures. The owner of a sole proprietor ship shouldn't have to wory about being voted out, while at the same time a democratic society shouldn't be run by a dictator with an unlimited time in office.

At the very least we need Business groups, and Social groups.

Social groups: Lead by a top level of executive officers who share equal power. Multiple levels of authority can be created (but probably only at group creation, and the number of officers at each level can be unlimited or set. Time limits can be imposed for officer positons, where by after a certain amount of time members need to be voted back into office. A quarum is still required to remove officers, but only counting the members who actually voted. Requires 3 or more members and are free.

Business groups: Lead by a founder who represents the top level of executive office. Founder is synonomous to root or a superuser and can not be involontarily removed from office, but can sell thier seat which would be synonimous to selling the company. The hierarchy can be defined with multiple levels of authority and imposed time limits (excluding the founder). Officers cannot be voted out of office, but can be removed (fired) by any higher officer for any reason. Only requires a founder, but there is an associated affordable monthly charge (in $Lindens).

These two types of groups would satisfy me.


P.S. Please forgive and don't judge me by all the misspellings. Don't feel like spell checking at the moment.

The recommendations for two types of groups make the most sense to me. Group management tools are already more complicated than many current residents seem to understand.

I agree with Wayfinder and others that a "sole proprietor" group is needed so that a founder (owner) can appoint officers (agents) with limited powers. If they go wrong, or fall out of favor, the owner can give them a pink slip.

Some commentators say you can't have shareholders without a stock market, which is simply incorrect. There are tens of thousands of stock corporations in the United States with a handfull of shareholders, whose stock cannot be traded on any stock market, and has no ready resale capacity other than in a private sale or a sell-back to the other shareholders. These are known as "close" or "closely held" or "private" corporations and constitute the largest number of corporate entities. The more familiar "publicly held" corporations are each far bigger, but less numerous.

This does not prevent those shareholders in "closely held corporations" from voting their shares at board of directors meetings and exercising their rights as shareholders, or selling their shares to another in a private sale. So the absence of a stockmarket has no relevance to the existence of groups with the characteristics of stock corporations.

But, baby steps. Let's keep the group powers simple ("Keep It Simple Stupid" until we've tested them, and then power them up once the bugs have been tested out of a small step forward. Having "founder" controlled entities with officers having limited powers closely simulates a sole proprietorship. I suspect creative residents can use that and some side escrow deals to simulate corporate ownership with voting.

Groups don't have three levels like this
-Founder/Owner: can invite officers and members, change founder/owner, set limits on group (ie max officers allow officers to invite officers, max members, money share), open or close group for members. kick/remove officers
-Officer: invite only members unless Ower set it otherwise, make poles, annouments, etc.
-Member: make poles, group IM (unless muted), give contirbutions, etc.

the normal group for SL is so hard and loose that there can be problems if there is a officer that sells all land and gives it away... I like this because the owner/founder can change the officers can sell off and there will never be problems with the land being sold away :>

I would like to add another point to be considered along the lines of what has been mentioned here. This thread appears to focused on larger groups and certainly all have made excellent points for re-vamping the 'groups thing'. It would appear that many are using it as a workaround for other (not-available) tools.
I am concerned about another set of groups that would not benefit from the changes suggested here, as it would most certainly complicate the issue. I am refering to small private partnerships. I see them quite often when exploring. It seems they are typically based on couples and if they're like me they use them to share land/object usage, etc.
In this case, the minimum 3 required for a group is problematic unless you have a very close friend to add as the 'invisible' third member. In this instance, all couples using the group function become threesomes . I am sure, for some this is not as amusing as it might seem.
So, in the interest of fairness, I would like to see partnerships with modifiable permissions before the group functions get changed. I suggest keeping the ability to donate land to the partnership, but retain ownership. Stuff happens. Then, upgrading the current permission set to allow interact (same as owner)/move/return to owner.
Marriage/unions/partnerships are an integral part of SL and definatly need some attention. And makes for another point that may be causing current group limitations. IMHO, there are unnecessary groups (mine for example). It's a workaround for a partnership. Eliminating this workaround could have a impact on the available resources for the suggestions made above. Obviously, this doesn't impact the programming required to make it happen.
I would like to see the suggestions made here become reality and I think a more robust partnership makes more sense anyway.

Your post is quite valid. In fact, those points have been made by many others in other forums; I'm glad you brought this to light again here, for it needs to be repeated again.

The "3 person" arbitrary group requirement seems frankly, ludicrous. Most people get around that by simply using an alt to make the 3rd person. So why have such a limit? In fact if ONE person wants to set up a "group"... is it imagined that there is no need for a sole proprietorship business?

Especially when it comes to land ownership, it is now totally impossible for more than one person to own a piece of land. I can understand LL doing this, for it simplifies things. But at the same time, it has caused more problems for users than one can shake a stick at. On private islands, only ONE person can have access to estate tools, making land management difficult if one is the owner and the partner is the builder/manager. Like you said, if one donates land to group, one risks another officer selling the land out from under him (and indeed, that has happened more than once, to the great irritation of many).

So much of SL is very advanced-- while other parts of it are dumber than a box of rocks. We have all these groups, but no way for officers to communicate with the group. We have land, but no way to monitor scripts and prims properly. We have estate tools, but only one person can use them. And they're weak. Land editing tools are pitiful, worse than those featured in a common $20 game program.

We have to appreciate of course that LL has a lot on its plate. But many, many people have pointed out that before a lot of new features are released, the basics need to be addressed first. Thus the purpose of this thread. We know LL is right in the middle of updating Group features even as we chat. Let's hope some of these concepts made it to their final drawing board... including elimination of the useless 3-person requirement.

Pls vote!

http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1068

Regarding the proposal for the ability to mute group chat...

I think that it is a great idea, but I hope that it applies only to the current session and is unmuted when we log back in. It would be too easy to forget that you have muted the group and would effectively cut you off forever.

Wayfinder, I've been thinking about the exact same suggestion you posted for over the past 6 or 7 months actually. It's good to see that I'm not the only one who feel that we should have the same controls over group spam as we do over individual spam. There have been times where I would get group spam like every minute. I just wanted to stick a plug in it.

Wayfinder, I've been thinking about the exact same suggestion you posted for over the past 6 or 7 months actually. It's good to see that I'm not the only one who feel that we should have the same controls over group spam as we do over individual spam. There have been times where I would get group spam like every minute. I just wanted to stick a plug in it.

All of those suggestions are great, but the biggest gripe I have is having to use the Voting system to get messages to all group members. A Group Announcement feature is sorely needed, and should only be accessible by the founder and officers of the group. I fear this feature, although possibly being worked on already based on what was said in the Group focus discussions, won't come for months.

That's what I was thinking too, only mute for this session and you should be able to un-mute without a relog.

Almost all my 10 votes are on group related things. lol I hate having to send out bogus proposals to message everyone in a group.

http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=418

I hear that. Not only is it a pain to use (as well as very limited in space), but it causes confusion, the users get notified twice about everything, and it's unfortunately the ONLY way to contact all group members.

I find it hard to conceive of the idea that an "officer-to-group announcement" feature wasn't established the moment groups themselves were established. Seems to me a basic, logical, predictable need.

LOL. That's because they move the Calling Cards of all their members to one folder and drop a note on the Calling Cards. Elf Clan doesn't subject our members to that-- and it's a major hassle, especially with 2 officers signing up group members. The Calling Card system is also buggy. Doesn't work with notecards; you still have to drop an individual notecard on every person in the group (which some clubs do). I don't have the time to do that with 526 elves.

yes please!

I would also like to see more options for handling group money.

Consider the example of a club with serveral officers, money is donated by members to help fund events etc. Money paid to the group should stay in the group (and not be paid out to all members automatically), Group officers have full and equal rights to the funds. This would provided transparency to the group members.