# Group Account Feedback



## Dragoneer (Oct 14, 2009)

If you could have any two features for group accounts what would they be?

Trying to get some solid feedback so we can work out a good plan to turn over to the coders. We'd like to resolve the groups properly. Please keep responses short and sweet if possible.

#1

#2


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## Equium (Oct 14, 2009)

#1 - Have them as a seperate "tab", so that instead of "watching" them, you join them as a general user, and the groups you belong to can be viewed by anyone.

#2 - Allow people to upload pictures/art/music to groups without them having to "sign in" to the group - though I can sense this may be a bit of a headache for the group owners.

It's 1:12am here. I can't think of TWO ideas. :lol:


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## Donryu (Oct 14, 2009)

Group accounts that are oriented toward arts, I feel, should have faves and comments turned off.  Instead, allowing the description to focus more toward the artist and feedback toward them.  Such as providing links to the original pic and the artist.  

Sorry, that's something that irritated me about DA for YEEAARS


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## lokiwuff (Oct 14, 2009)

I think group accounts should have 
#1 The Ability to Fav turned off, no reason for it. 
#2 The ability to comment on pieces, shouts are okay, but art is not...

I suggest having a separate group around, as in being apart of the group, instead of watching it. That way it is also easier for alot of people to see the differences...

I agree with the not having to log in to post, but I think it should be ACL based


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## StormyWonderfox (Oct 14, 2009)

#1. something to do with special announcements 

#2. Mission statement/ Purpose/ Qualification


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## Aurali (Oct 14, 2009)

Should have a group leader that can moderate over the group him/herself.

Should not be completely pointless.


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## PhantomLion (Oct 14, 2009)

Groups must have something do do with art and the community that it's being hosted on that is FA, nuff said 'Neer, ;D 

You da man!


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## taliesin_dragoon (Oct 14, 2009)

#1 Groups should allow some kind of "featured gallery". The "leader" of the group can choose between all the submissions of those in the group to create a custom gallery (without having to upload duplicates). Of course any artist will have to confirm each piece of art before it can successfully be inserted into the group gallery. Example, the Spyro Fans group will have a browsable gallery with Spyro art from all the artists who have joined the group.

#2 Groups should have a dedicated layout of their page, so that you can actually see what goes on in that group. it would mean having a different design - still in line with the actual FA style of course - so that you can go and check things like contests, artist of the week, interests, activities... all the things that make groups so special - and of any use!


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## Silver Fenrir (Oct 14, 2009)

Dun dun duuuuun here we go:

Groups should be displayed on a userpage in a fashion like the Friends, so on. Good example is how SheezyArt and Y! G does it. Probably small banners or icons on the side under friends/watchers or whatev.

  There should be no double-posting, as in there should be an option to simply take a submission uploaded to one's main account and allocate/junction it to a group.  This saves space and draws attention to the poster of the submission, as well as the submission being a part of the group via allocation to the Group's submissions page without actually resubmitting the file itself. If a Mod sees that it doesn't fit, it can simply be disjunctioned.   Y!G does an excellent job of this, I think.

  You can junction a pic/music/story to one to no more than four Groups at a time, to limit mass-spam.

  And...  I dunno.  Outside of that, I dunno. Something similar to how Y!G does their groups, and I'm all good haha


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## Catamount (Oct 14, 2009)

-Visual design that is distinguishes it from the user pages, you should be able to tell at a glace that this is not a userpage
-Definitely agree to having favs turned off


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## Devia_Luna (Oct 14, 2009)

Well the only thing SheezyArt ever did well was their handling of groups, so I'd suggest glancing at it.

However I don't think the groups people are members of need their own slot on the person's page. Takes up unneccesary space.


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## DevHalena (Oct 14, 2009)

1 - This might fall outside of the topic, but I would love to see a list of groups that someone is in on their userpage by default. I always hated having to list all the club icons in my journal back on DeviantART. It got really tedious having to do all that myself.

2 - And I really like what some of the people here are saying about the comments and favorites being turned off or on when it comes to club submissions.


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## Kangamutt (Oct 14, 2009)

Along with making the pages distinguished from user accounts and uploading, or like Silver Fenrir said, a linking system, the creator of the group should have moderation capabilites, such as deleting submissions/links and messages/posts/comments.


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## Mikau (Oct 14, 2009)

As Britfox puts it, I'd say the very same thing. Furocity has groups up on their site.

There's a lot of things FA needs.


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## Aurali (Oct 14, 2009)

Mikau said:


> As Britfox puts it, I'd say the very same thing. Furocity has groups up on their site.
> 
> There's a lot of things FA needs.



I'm glad we aren't Furocity >.>


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## Star_Ringer (Oct 14, 2009)

If watched group submissions appear in general submissions, have an indicator if the group is being watched, but not the artist, if that makes sense. So many times on y!gallery I realize I'm not watching someone, they just submit a lot to a group I watch.


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## Circeus (Oct 14, 2009)

I think borrowing a page from Colourlovers.com might be an idea:

The "gallery" of a group works like a "favorites" gallery. When you upload something to your account, you have a series of checkboxes for groups you are member of of: "add this submission to group". This way, the gallery links are actually to the individual artwork in the artists' galleries. (Unlike CL, however, artwork pages should have a list of groups they are in, maybe below the tags?)

The group owner(s) would get the ability to later remove a submission from the group (i.e. to clean out later deleted submissions), so that a separate gallery could be made for related artworks by artists that are not members.


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## Danjen (Oct 14, 2009)

#1 - Have it so that when you look at a group page, you can join or leave one.

#2 - Have it so that each group page is like a mini-forum to members.

Other than that, not sure how they should function. Of course, there should be a separate journal (and maybe picture) section for them, too.


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## Dragoneer (Oct 14, 2009)

Mikau said:


> As Britfox puts it, I'd say the very same thing. Furocity has groups up on their site.
> 
> There's a lot of things FA needs.


And we're working on them one by one. Furocity is not FA, and the groups issue on FA has been an issue for some time (only more recently brought into the limelight by recent issues).

We've got a lot of things to fix, and I'm trying to organize some things to being begin fixing them.


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## Takun (Oct 14, 2009)

1. User list/Join list

2. Topics/Forum threads (It should be in someway social, since it's a group). See last fm groups.  Let's say it's a group for art critique.  You could post a topic to get a critique.

3. A connected Gallery?  Something in the code that lets you also post it to the group?  Maybe via tags (tag USA_FURS) shows up in USA_FURS gallery.  This way the submitter has to be the one to post the picture in the group and not the owner of the group. Also you aren't running into duplicates in group galleries and main galleries.

Alternatively, just allow the members to upload... guess that's easier and everything ._.


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## MiffTheFox (Oct 14, 2009)

Groups have an "owner" who creates the group, "moderators" appointed by the owner, and "users" who can join the group (optionally pending moderator approval).

Users (or, optionally just moderators) can (if the option is enabled) add their pre-existing submissions to the group.  These work for the most part like favorites, except that every member in the group will receive a message (similar to a submission update) about the image being posted, for example: "[Name of submission] by [artist] via [group]".  Clicking this would link to the original submission on the artist's page.

Moderators would be able to post announcements to the group as well, these are journals in all but name.

Finally, each user should be able to automatically list the groups they are a member of on their userpage, as a series of icons.


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## marmelmm (Oct 14, 2009)

I'm confoozled.  Are you talking a group such as Yahell! Groups, or more of a gallery thing?  If the latter, then:

a) Checkmark option to the group when submitting/editing; 

b) Redirection of all faves and comments to the original image.  

-MMM-


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## PaulShepherd (Oct 14, 2009)

#1, definitely a tab function, so that it's not showing up on the watch list, but like a tab on our profile. ^^

#2, maybe add a little discussion tab to the groups too. It would be a neat function.


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## Range (Oct 14, 2009)

*How's about not banning the working group accounts that are currently running?*


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## StormyWonderfox (Oct 14, 2009)

Aurali said:


> I'm glad we aren't Furocity >.>



I second this


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## Takun (Oct 14, 2009)

StormyWonderfox said:


> I second this



She's only saying it cause the dude is a bro.


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## TopazThunder (Oct 14, 2009)

These two have already been said, but I second them: 

#1: A separate tab on your user profile that list groups that you're in.

#2: A list of the members in the group as well as the moderators, rather like a "Is Watching" and "Watched By" list.



			
				Takumi_L said:
			
		

> She's only saying it cause the dude is a bro.



lol


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## StormyWonderfox (Oct 14, 2009)

Takumi_L said:


> She's only saying it cause the dude is a bro.



I don't know what that means, but I'm saying it for my own reasons, so I really don't care


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## Rilvor (Oct 14, 2009)

Clafier said:


> These two have already been said, but I second them:
> 
> #1: A separate tab on your user profile that list groups that you're in.
> 
> #2: A list of the members in the group as well as the moderators, rather like a "Is Watching" and "Watched By" list.



^


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## conneich (Oct 14, 2009)

Hurm.... To be honest I have no idea what these "Group Accounts" are... a good description of them would be my first suggestion so that we actually know what to suggest should be added for them >>


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## Aurali (Oct 14, 2009)

Another suggestion would be to have someone to watch over all the group as normal staff.


Takumi_L said:


> She's only saying it cause the dude is a bro.



:/ I tried to google this, and your post was the first to come up.

And I'm saying this because I still have a lot of friends who run this site.



conneich said:


> Hurm.... To be honest I have no idea what these "Group Accounts" are... a good description of them would be my first suggestion so that we actually know what to suggest should be added for them >>



Groups for users to be in.


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## Takun (Oct 14, 2009)

Aurali said:


> Another suggestion would be to have someone to watch over all the group as normal staff.
> 
> 
> :/ I tried to google this, and your post was the first to come up.
> ...




You don't know what a bro is?  Bros would eat you alive and then do 5 shotguns in a row before winning the last game of beerpong.


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## UnderDrag (Oct 15, 2009)

A list of groups perhaps? And... artists who are willing to do free icons for new groups.

I have a question. I run the TFfurs group, is that against AUP?


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## k9kiba (Oct 15, 2009)

1: difference between open and closed groups. anyone can join an open group. a closed group needs the approving of the group owner or moderator or something.

2: ability to import work of artists they like, without having to upload it themselves.


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## Ticky (Oct 15, 2009)

I'm pretty sure this kind of thing's been said but the submissions should be associated with the user who posted them, and should then be able to be linked to the group so there's no duplication of posts.

Perhaps a similar thing could be done for commission pieces? Each user can have a "My Commissions and Gifts" (Needs a better name!) in which everything that is tagged as being something they were involved in is shown, but is posted to the original artist's account ONLY.


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## Pyritie (Oct 15, 2009)

Donryu said:


> Sorry, that's something that irritated me about DA for YEEAARS



although dA's finally making them at the moment


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## Monkeykitten (Oct 17, 2009)

OKAY, so, I thought I would respond from the perspective of a person who co-pilots a group. That_Monotrile and I both run SpeciesXChange. For those unfamiliar with it, members submit a species and they are randomly assigned to those participating in each round (rounds are half a month long). Then folks draw their character as the species assigned. It's pretty fun and we've been goin' strong since spring of 2008. 

ANYWAYS, here is what would make running this group SUPER EASY for me. I am going to need more than two slots, sorry. c: 

1- An announcement system separate from journals. I've noticed that, at least on my end, the updates from SXC get buried under lots of other journals, as I watch a bunch of people. It would be nice to see group announcements pop up in a separate section.

2- An easy way to move group member's submissions to the group's gallery... something like the favorite system would be nice. Or maybe something the user could do on their end, like a button they could see on their submission that says "SUBMIT TO GROUP (with maybe a drop-down menu and they pick which group)" and then the group moderators would approve it and it would go in their gallery... but I guess in a way that wouldn't have double-posts. O:

3- Disable favorites/comments on group submissions. That way we don't have to put that huge watermark on stuff saying PLEASE FAVORITE THE ORIGINAL, THANKS. Unfortunately people seem to see right through that watermark and +fav and comment on our group submissions anyways. :C Or maybe when they are browsing the group gallery and they click on a thumbnail it just links them to the original and we don't have to worry about a thing. O: But then again, it'd be nice to be able to moderate the titles of things in the group's gallery, at least for the SXC's purposes. That way we can label things with the round and the species so we can easily go back and check who has submitted what.

4- Being able to have multiple moderators for a group would be pretty great. Pilots and co-pilots. Yeah. c: Obviously there could just be some password sharing, but it would be nice to have some kind of official list in the profile of who is the owner of the group and who else is helping to moderate it.

5- Separate +join/+watch buttons. Some people may just want to watch the community to see what comes out of it instead of joining it, especially one like SXC that is based on artistic submissions. It'd be neat if people who watch the group could get what is added to the group gallery in their submission inbox, since they may not watch all the members of the group.

I could think of dozens of things that would make it easier for us to organize our rounds and whatnot... but I don't that wouldn't be useful for any other groups, so I'll skip it. c:

Sorry, I am kind of unnecessarily long-winded. :B


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## xXxRadiotrashxXx (Oct 17, 2009)

Other then the Country/State/Province clubs[Which are just neat to see]...I think the forums perfectly suited for the "need" for clubs.

Or it's going to turn into sheezy with double posting of the same artwork over a ton of clubs...


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## krisCrash (Oct 17, 2009)

1: submissions submitted to the club should in fact just be a ghost of the artist's upload and thumbnail link directly to it. IE no double uploads, artist in control of the piece (hoping for this function for commissions too, though as optional).

2: should be moderate-able by one or more users without having them log out of their own account and into the group's. For instance a group moderation could be password protected instead of assigning moderators per se. Thus remove or rename anything that sounds personal-related; journals > announcement/newsletter, profile > group info. Retain notes in some form, readable by all moderators.

I hope there will be some form of approval for an account to be a group.


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## Ben (Oct 18, 2009)

Aurali said:


> I'm glad we aren't Furocity >.>



This post confuses me greatly. 

And yeah, ability to link them to your profile is probably key.


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## Armaetus (Oct 18, 2009)

Aurali said:


> I'm glad we aren't Furocity >.>



What do you have against the competition? <..<


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## Monkeykitten (Oct 18, 2009)

Glaice said:


> What do you have against the competition? <..<



Competition is p. healthy guys.

Also, website loyalty gives me the giggles.


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## Aurali (Oct 18, 2009)

Monkeykitten said:


> Competition is p. healthy guys.
> 
> Also, website loyalty gives me the giggles.



*laughs*  nawr. I checked out that site.. Premium pay features, horrible chat system... and that mascot *shudders* Besides, yeah, I'm still loyal to this site, Most of the staff are personal friends hun.


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## Kaamos (Oct 18, 2009)

Aurali said:


> and that mascot *shudders*.



What's wrong with the mascot?


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## ZentratheFox (Oct 18, 2009)

Multiple. Group. Moderators.

_Please_


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## thelacine (Oct 21, 2009)

1) the ability to manually delete old accounts
2) and to delete old private messages


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## Kattywampus (Oct 22, 2009)

Group accounts that act like groups would be swell.. Just PLEASE... make this some way discouraging to doubleposters.  Like people had said before, some kind of tagging system for uploads or SOMETHING by the original uploader that will allow them to link the file to a group.  Kinda like how your faves work now.  Also, this "group" type of account might work well for some of the non-contributing art-whores (I mean that non offensively) that upload doubles of stuff the original artists have already uploaded.

That way, people can still obsess over their favorite furry personalities, while the faves go to the original artist (who is overlooked many times).


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## wolfsymphony (Oct 31, 2009)

1. A way to join groups and having the option whether to watch them or not. Think LJ communities and being able to list them on your friends page so you get updated when someone makes a post and apply that same idea to FA groups. Having a section on your profile that lists groups you've joined would be nice too.
2. Being able to submit artwork/news posts to the group but have them moderated by the owner of the group. He/she can accept and decline whatever they choose, that way there won't be spamming or posting of inappropriate material.


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## Aurali (Oct 31, 2009)

The ability for group owners to kick trouble makers at will


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## Devious Bane (Nov 1, 2009)

I'd say info, member areas, and notices is all the group would need. Minus 1 tidbit that comes to mind-
Kicking/blocking ineligible members, e.g. a Male joining a Female-only group.

Being a tidbit however, it's really pointless - Especially since the current group-account setup handles just fine.


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## salmy (Mar 9, 2010)

Make 2 kind of groups:
     a) Generalistic/objective: Requested by someone via formal way, with a good reason and a real one, but only approved and owned by the site's current admins/moderators. It'd allow a neutral icon that has to do with the group. Example: Furs from Spain, Furs from Venezuela, Cheetah Lovers.
     b) Private/owned groups: For any purpose, free to create by anyone, and the owners/moderators decide who is in the list and who is not (pretty much like now)

The reason for this is because, for example, I'm in Spain. I'd like to be in the 'spain' group, but since I've had issues with the two 'admins' of that group, they removed me from the list because I'm not 'watching' them. In the long run, they will end up only having a list of their friends there. I'm from Spain, or live in Spain, so I think I should have the right per-se of being seen in that group, but I'm not going to beg those guys to add me to it, much less 'watch' an account where their private accounts are all around for everybody to see like if they were the universe's bosses.


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## Mizuhiro Neko (Jun 6, 2010)

Dragoneer said:


> If you could have any two features for group accounts what would they be?
> 
> Trying to get some solid feedback so we can work out a good plan to turn over to the coders. We'd like to resolve the groups properly. Please keep responses short and sweet if possible.
> 
> ...



1. Searchable groups. I mean, have a way to search for a group. I'd also like that for users, so I could find a user if I have an idea of the name, but that is separate. Having searchable groups will help eliminate duplicate groups created by furs who do not know that a group already exists.

2. Allow group members to add submissions to the group's gallery with a button. Submission entries could be configured so that anyone can upload, or that submissions must be approved by group administrators through an administrative setting in the group's control panel.

I have other suggestions, but you limited it to two, so those are two.


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## Darkwatch (Jun 6, 2010)

1- Have a dedicated spot for listing the groups a person is a member of in their profile. 

2- I would have gone with a little group chat room for them all to communicate real-time, but that would probably be difficult, so I say also have a display of users in the group on the groups page as well.


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