Group Guidelines

Everyone on Share Square is encouraged to join and create groups. It’s important to remember that being in a community requires adopting some common standards.

Thank you for playing your part in co-creating a space for connection, collaboration, and inspiration. Here are the group guidelines:

Determine whether creating a group is necessary. Too many groups can be overwhelming. So, before creating a group, determine the size of your topic. If it’s too small, maybe it’s better to create a topic instead. If the topic grows, you can always create a group later.
Always look at existing groups first. Perhaps your group already exists! In order to avoid duplicates, make sure to check the list before creating a new group.
Choose a good name and description. A good group name and description will avoid confusion for those wanting to join groups. It can also help encourage people to join your group! Make sure it’s both informative and eye-catching.
Add members to your group. We encourage you to add people to your group that would be interested in the content. Tip! If you add people to a group and you create new content, they will be notified per email. This will lure them to your group.
You have group owner responsibilities. As a group owner, it is your responsibility to keep an eye on the group activity and keep it active. This means less work for community managers and ensures that all groups contribute to the community.
Inactive groups will be evaluated. The community managers will be regularly checking which groups are inactive or active. If a group has been inactive for a certain period of time, the community managers get to decide if it stays open or not.

When to use closed/open groups?

In Share Square, there are three different types of groups you can create:

Public Group: Public groups and their content are visible to everyone, including those that are not logged into the platform. However, people can only post or comment on group content or enroll in group events after logging into the platform and joining the group.
Open Group: Open groups are groups that people can join without permission from the group manager. All the posts, events, and topics in the open group are visible to other users on the platform. Non-group members cannot create content in the group or comment on any of the posts, events, or topics unless they join the open group.
Closed Group: A closed group is a group where members can only join by invitation from one of the group managers. The stream, events, and topics created in the closed group are not visible to people that are not a member of the group. A non-group member is only allowed to read the about page, the group manager, and the members of the group.

So, when is it best to create an open or closed group?

Open groups are best when the group is meant to discuss a general topic or casts a wide net over a certain subject. If the group is of interest to everyone, then it makes sense to create an open group.

Closed groups are best for topics that are private to for a group that requires a sense of legitimacy (for example, an alumni group). If you want to discuss sensitive topics, then this is the group type you should choose.

FYI: We generally do not encourage closed groups, since we are a social community. Share Square is supposed to be both transparent and open. If users are not a member of a group, they will also not get updates per email or on their home screen.