Image credit: Paul Smith / Martin Fox
The Spiceworks Community has more than 500 discussion groups on everything from Active Directory to World of Warcraft . We continually receive requests to build new groups, but oftentimes the group category doesn’t have the critical mass necessary for us to devote the resources required to run them. Sounds like a job for . . . User Groups, a concept whereby SpiceHeads like you can create and lead their own discussion groups around any topic, purpose, or occasion you want – whether it’s IT related or not. Want a group for veterans in IT? You can jumpstart it. Want to pull together fellow IT pros studying for a particular certification test? You can get the conversation going. Want to facilitate communication among the IT staff at your company? User Groups can make that happen.
David Bass wrote about this idea a few months ago , and it went over so well that we’ve been busy ever since building admin tools and other features to streamline the experience. Now we’re pleased to announce that the beta version of User Groups has officially been rolled out!
Getting started is super-simple. If you have an idea for a User Group that doesn’t exist, just fill out a short form to submit your group request. Once the Spiceworks Team has approved it, your group will be live and you’ll automatically be crowned the Group’s Admin. After that, it’s a matter of inviting people to join – and managing the join requests that will no doubt start rolling in. (As the all-powerful admin, you can also make your group “invitation-only.”) You’ll then get the discussion ball rolling by posting a few topics, and your group will be well underway.
All User Groups (except the invitation-only ones) will be listed in the User Group Directory – shown below – and SpiceHeads can use this page to submit requests to join a specific group. Group Admins have the final say on which requests are approved.
Each User Group is limited to 75 members. We’ll re-evaluate that number as we go, but for now that helps keep the groups to a manageable size for the Group Admins. If a group hits that limit and continues to gain traction, we’ll see if it’s a good candidate for opening up to the wider community as a regular group. Please note that, even though these new User Groups are private, all Community rules and guidelines still apply, and you won’t earn pepper points for interactions that take place in these groups.
This feature is very much still in beta, but if it’s as popular as we hope it will be, we’ll have more bells and whistles coming Soon™. In the meantime, go ahead and try it out and let us know what you think! Before you request that a new group be created, start by visiting the User Groups Directory and seeing what’s already out there. If you don’t see anything you’re looking for, you can hit the “Request New Group” button at the top of that page.
Questions? Comments? Consternations? Let us know below.
See the current list of User Groups!
