The biting forum group ([topic not found]) was set up really well - with individual groups for each type of zombie you can bite others to become. But, the problem is when I go offline I come back to hundreds of pings. Now I can go in and mute pings, but I belong to a dozen biting groups which mean opening each group and muting the pings individually, then when I come back online doing it all over again. This is a major hassle.

I would love to see sub-groups. So, you have the main group - Biting, lets say. You sign up for that, and underneath there are 20 ping groups, the main biting one and one for each zombie strain. You can then mute pings, or sign up for pings from which ever subgroup you belong to. Then at the end of the day you can turn off pings for everything by muting the biting group. Turn them back on when you return.

It would be helpful for regular groups as well. Say you have your main group and it has a purpose - so you set it up and ping each time a certain event happens. But some group members want to ping the group to say, a giveaway thread, a lot of group members are into this, but some only want the main pings. So you make a subgroup - Fun group pings, or casual pings.

Many of the groups I belong to end up creating additional groups which really are subgroups of the main one. Offhand I can think of three or four of my "main" groups that have these subgroups. The subgroups are basically a ping group for a subset of the main group. By allowing something like this, you accomplish several things. Less groups overall. A neater "my groups page." The ability to get only the pings you really want, along with the ability to mute everything at once if you're going on holiday or hiatus.

Alternate suggestion - The above is my dream suggestion that I realize maybe be impractical, may take too long to implement, or have other issues.

I'd like to see a page like the Forum Subscriptions page for groups. Where you can click through what is essentially a text/table based view of your ping groups where you can mute several (or all) groups at once without having to open each one individually.

[EDIT] And made an excellent suggestion:

I can think of lots of groups I belong to that would use this functionality - where there is currently 1 main group and 1-3 additional subgroups (for casual chat, giveaways, event pings, etc.). Having them all under the main group would be cleaner and easier to manage.

Aw poor infected ravening cannibalistic carnivore is having a hassle with spreading it's nasty fatal diseases is it? :) I've got a "hassle" for ya. wiggles naked "no biting" tattooed body parts in your direction

I'm not really sure what you're going for here. The solution already exists and you have mentioned it. There's no reason that your biting club can't have other members who happen to like to live in a specific skin run their subgroups as completely separate forum groups just like you say. And then on the description of the main page give all the other group ping # and their URL. This is how the Harry Potter larp group does it and theirs is totally complicated but it works. It just means more people have to wanna be "administrators". Yeah, that's what they're doing....adminiSTRAYshun.

Anyways, with separate pings you can tell you wants to be bitten what just by the ping, since it's unique.

LOL yep, quite a hassle to find willing victims!

Yes, I do want to keep the separately named pings, so I know which skin to slip into when I go to bite. The problem comes with muting pings when I go away and turning them back on when I return. I can't decide if its easier to delete hundreds of pings every morning - or open, mute, close and open the next group, ad infinitum, and do it twice a day - once to mute and once to turn on again.

By having a main group with subgroups - I could mute the whole list with only opening one group (the main one). The main group could have any number of subgroups - each of which have their own ping call. But its all tied together, so even though you can have many different ping names - you only have one group - one set of forums, one bank, one listing on the "my groups" page, etc.

@ Lypsyl Hey, thanks for the ping on my other topic! Sorry it took me so long to get to this, I've been tangled up in some IRL chaos. 😬 Brain is still trying to catch up, so if I misunderstood the suggestion, I'm sorry!

I can see this both being very useful, and very messy. For example, If someone has a CW, or an art shop, they can set up one group with several subgroups (interest check, releases, commissions, trading, etc.).

But on the other hand, you'd still need to closely monitor which subgroups you want to get pinged for and which ones you don't want to get pinged for.

What happens when a group owner makes more subgroups? Do the members get notified so they can adjust their ping settings? Would you be able to limit membership to subgroups? Example: if you're running a group roleplay event, but you need to have people in 4 different subgroups. Can you invite users specifically to one particular subgroup, and only limit the pings they get to that subgroup? In the case of roleplay events, not having that sorted could be potentially disastrous for the plot of the event. It would also be a reason to still have separate forum groups even with the subgroup system.

I can't even begin to imagine the ping-flood from being a member of all the biting groups, but I think there might possibly be an easier solution. ?

What about a silent/no pings mode in the site settings? You'd get mails, comments, all other events except for forum pings, news comment pings and forum group pings. You'd be able to toggle everything easily with one button (give or take 10 minutes for the cache to catch up), but you'd be set for the night (or a hiatus), and you wouldn't wake up to 200+ pings.

Yeah, it wouldn't completely eliminate the need for secondary groups (for lack of a better term).

As for new subgroups being made, you wouldn't automatically be a member of that subgroup - basically the structure would look like this:

Maingroup - must sign up to become a member of any sub-group. Sub1 - member Sub2 - non-member Sub3 - member

So I get pings from maingroup, sub1 and sub3, but not sub2, because I'm not a member. Now I can still choose to mute sub1 and/or sub3 to get or not get pings from them. Or I can mute the whole list through maingroup - but later when I unmute maingroup, my original settings of subgroups return.

Later on owner makes Sub4 and sub5 - I would have to join those subgroups before I need to decide if I want to get pings from them. Just being a member of maingroup doesn't automatically add me to subs 1-5, I would still have to join them.

So far its not much different from having a bunch of individual groups. Where it changes in particular is that you only have one set of forums - so imagine the main page of the forums where you have: Subeta Subeta Features Subeta Commerce Creative Corner Social Scene 10000 group forums

The 10000 group forums would be much smaller, only consisting of several MainGroup forums (rather than maingroups+all secondary groups).

Another difference would be a single bank, and other features, if added (like a group shop/item bank) etc.

Main issue here is that if you need to have a private forum (like the gaming group example) then you would have to make a secondary rather than a sub-group. Or even better - it could be made that you can set limits on who can view certain threads, but that starts to involve a lot of permissions that don't currently exist in the group system. But these are options that you've talked about adding anyway in the forum improvement thread. It could certainly be part of making groups more able to fulfill the role of defunct cults.

_____________________ annoying disappearing spoilers. [spoiler=your proposed solution] Problem here is that I would never end up using a mute all group pings. There are certain groups I belong to that I would want to see any pings I missed during a hiatus - siteupdate for example. As staff at SubetaLodge - those are a another group ping that I could not miss! Though I'm sure it would be a useful suggestion for many users - probably something to add to your thread :)

Probably, the simplest, easiest solution overall would be the suggestion in the final paragraph of the OP - a text based page where you can see all your groups and click mute on and off.

@ Lypsyl Hmm... I like it better now that you've explained it, but part of my brain is still screaming "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE DRAMA?!". As if the potential for drama doesn't already exist right now with muting ping groups and forgetting to unmute them. 😂

I imagine there would also need to be a limit on the number of subgroups a single group was allowed to have. Maybe a GA perk could be having more subgroups? They'd stay after your GA expires, of course, but you wouldn't be able to make new ones until you got another GA.

... Huh. Now this got me wondering. Could ping settings be a thing? Ones that you could set up yourself? If you remember the old profile settings for various cellphones (meeting, outdoors, silent, etc.), something a lot like those. So for example, you'd have a "Sleeping" setting where you'd allow pings from groups for Subetalodge, token shop, site update and various other important stuff you don't want to miss. And a "Default" setting with allowed pings for any and all groups of your choosing.

Yes, the sample you mocked up would be good.

Do you subscribe to threads? That was my first idea for a mute "system" that didn't involve going into each group and muting it. But I like your idea even better, it doesn't add a new page, just the functionality outside the group so you don't have to open another page.

A permissions style setup could also work, that would be similar to the threads subscription.

Nah, it's so that willing victims can find us. ;) We made it much easier for one person to summon a hoard of zombies.

And yes, we really do need an easier way to turn of pings without having to go to each and every ping group to do it. Granted, I don't think Staff ever imagined that one group would go on spawn 40+ more for one event or that people would end up joining so many of them. Now that we've done it though, we do need something to help make it easier to manage the pings from them.

I personally like @/Frost's idea of having an icon we can toggle, because I like to have some sort of visual for which groups I'm muting/unmuting (which will be easier when we finish our logos). It's just easier for me to keep track of at any rate.

yes and a visible marker right on the groups page makes it so much easier to remember to turn them back on!