So, I'm probably in the minority for this. I don't believe forum groups should count as forum posts. When I did get points for posting in them, I always found it odd. I'm not surprised that someone abused it bad enough that we got the feature of the points turned off. I get that people have anxiety (I myself have it) but I find that Subeta is quite a safe space for people to express themselves. Subeta even offers a small talk area where friends can make semi-private boards to talk that people can utilize. (At least that's how I've always viewed that area. Just small groups of friends having a little niche to talk in.)

I'd rather see the archaic forum rules (specifically necroing) be addressed and revised to take into account the current activity level which is vastly different than it used to be. However, I don't believe people should get forum points for talking outside of the forums.

Public forums Forum points Forum groups Private forums

I get the point that Keith and other users are making, but a private forum is still a forum even though it's not accessible to everyone.

If you're going to use that as part of your reasoning to cut off private group forums entirely from earning forum points, then it's just common sense and good practice to rename forum points into public forum points so that the method of obtaining this currency is clearer from the start to all users, new and old. And yes, please accompany it with a news post. Or at the very least a forum topic and a SiteUpdate ping.

[edit] It would also be a good idea to reword this bit of misleading info from the Forum Shop page: