One of the most annoying things we Staff have to deal with is the discharge of members, it takes time and it's tedious; another is creating and altering private forum areas for factions, especially those with sub-forums for Africa (yes I'm looking at you Rom Nom).
GWRS 2.0 lets leaders do all of that themselves! Here's a brief outline of some of the features that will be potentially available (not all will be enabled from the get go, some will need extensive testing and tweaking).
- Addon Pages - Create your own FAQ’s, About Us, Game Score Summaries, Blogging, as just a few ideas.
- Group Visibility - There are two different privacy levels (Public and Hidden) which let the groups be used for a range of activities.
- Group Customization - Allows groups extensive unique customization by providing the ability to feature customized layouts with self-selected functions, individual logos, themes, and banners.
- Invitations - Want to show off your fancy new group to all of your friends? You can send them all an invite to make sure that they don't miss out!
- Social Sharing - Share your groups using a variety of social media share buttons.
- Mass Messaging - Need to get a message out to all of the members of your group quickly? Well, you now can send them all a Mass Private Message to ensure that they are aware of all of the happenings within your group.
- Unique Forum with Sub-forum Functionality - Each time a group is added, a matching forum is also created. Group Admins have the ability to control permissions for this forum based on whether or not people are a member of the group. They can also create separate, private access sub-forums for group ranks such as staff members. You can control how group forums appear in the forum index. Each group forum features the group's sidebar navigation and personalized header.
- Group News - Groups are able to add news topics to their group portal to make sure the latest happenings are always visible to their members.
- Member Control - Group admins are able to control and create an unlimited number of group member ranks to provide tailored functionality for different features of the group. They'll also be able to approve/deny applications and discharge members autonomously.
So there, some juicy juicy teaser about what to expect from groups in 2.0. Faction leaders will be able to setup custom themes for the website (the entire layout of GWRS right now is a theme for myBB btw), manage their own members, sub-forums and so so so much more.
We're also going to start operating a two-type system. 'GWRS Factions' will be factions that use GWRS as their main website, 'Allied Factions' will be factions with their own websites (eg Enjin, Guild Launch etc - Social Media doesn't count). We're going to ensure that factions which call this place home get what they need to make this a proper functioning home for them; while 'Allied Factions' will get more support to recruit and participate without alienating the 'GWRS Factions' as has been the history here so far. Exactly where we draw lines is to be determined
GC is also looking into how to deal with the multi-group joining problem, and exactly where we draw lines between 'GWRS' and 'Allied' factions; however, it's an ongoing discussion and if you have any ideas please about either topic then please feel free to PM them, or post them in our community suggestion forum.
We've gained enough funding to keep the site running when the bill comes up in January, and onto the 2.0 upgrade part of the funding drive. Remember that $5 helps in the long run just as much as a $50 donation does, you all enjoy using GWRS, you all make it worthwhile running this place, so let's make it better for all of us as well.
Until next time,
~Cru
The Funding Thread
