The gist: Groups are cool because they let you join with other members from your area or who fly your same aircraft type.

http://www.backcountrypilot.org/community/groups

If you've explored the new site much, you've probably noticed a whole new section under Community called Groups. The Groups feature is meant to augment the classic discussion forum by allowing members who share some specific common interest-- aircraft type, location, or anything else-- to coalesce. It's not meant to be a forum replacement for discussions aimed at all BCP members, but a way to concentrate communication for those interested in, say:

- NW Oregon flying. If you've joined the NW Oregon group you will see group updates in your feed from any posts or comments that have been made to that group. You'll get email notifications if someone posts about a fly-out. Rather than sift through the member list, you can see other members who've joined the NW Oregon group and can assume they're potential neighbors.

- Same concept for the High Sierra Flyers.

While these can be private, the point is not to hide posts and content from people, but rather to concentrate it and make it easier to find other users and events, and shape your feed to make it as relevant as possible.

Another example: Cessna 180/185 Skywagon group. We're not trying to be a type club, there's already a website and forum for that. We're trying to let BCP members find other Skywagon owners. If you're a Skywagon owner, join the group to be counted and receive Skywagon-oriented notifications.

There's a very short list of current groups. I created a handful before site launch as an example, but it's up to you the members to create and manage them. I review and approve newly created groups to prevent duplicates.

I have the option of syncing Group discussions with the main forum, but it sort of defeats the purpose of concentrating these discussions and making them opt-in.

I'm open to suggestions for more groups and categories. I've made the current categories kind of US-centric in the regions but if the Canadians want in on it, let me know.

I have been wanting to use the group I tried to start but I have only one other member...I was going to pimp out the group but I didnt know if registration was re-enabled.

This would be the Ozark Pilots Group at http://www.backcountrypilot.org/me/my-n ... rks-pilots

xcalibursword wrote:I was going to pimp out the group but I didnt know if registration was re-enabled.

This would be the Ozark Pilots Group at http://www.backcountrypilot.org/me/my-n ... rks-pilots

That's a valid concern. Registration will open soon, I've been working on it this week.

Those URLs to the groups aren't the best either, but they work.

Zzz wrote:

xcalibursword wrote:I was going to pimp out the group but I didnt know if registration was re-enabled.

This would be the Ozark Pilots Group at http://www.backcountrypilot.org/me/my-n ... rks-pilots

That's a valid concern. Registration will open soon, I've been working on it this week.

Those URLs to the groups aren't the best either, but they work.

Should I be using a different URL to send folks to (when it is re-enabled)?