Forum visibility and membership are different settings but have some overlap. Let's learn about both and how they fit together.
Forum Membership is those who can participate in and be a forum member. Forum visibility refers to who can see the forum and its posts.
Forum Membership
Forum memberships are not maintained in real-time. When changes are made, there is a slight queuing delay before the forum member list is updated.
- All Active Members - All active club members are automatically members of this forum. Members can individually opt out of participating from their Member Profile.
- Member Opt-in - This forum is shown to all active club members on their Member Profile, and they can opt-in to participate in forum discussions.
- Moderator Defined - A forum moderator, forums module coordinator, or club administrator defines membership in these forums by adding members individually.
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Interest Members - Forum membership is maintained automatically based on an Interest group in the Interests module; if members are in the interest group, they will be in the forum. A new field will appear when this option is selected, allowing you to specify the interest group to which the forum should be linked.
For organizations with subgroups (Multi-Tier Option 2), you can base forum membership on an Interest at the parent level. Members at the parent level can participate if they select the Interest. Lower-level members sign in to the parent-level website, join the Interest group, and participate in the forum.
- Member Type - Forum membership is maintained automatically, based on a membership type; if members have the specified type, they will be in the forum. A new field will appear when this option is selected, allowing you to specify the member type to which the forum should be linked.
- Subgroup - Forum membership is maintained automatically, based on a subgroup such as a chapter, district, or region. When this option is selected, the organization hierarchy is displayed, and you can select a subgroup at any level.
- Member Additional Data - Forum membership is based on members' answers to an additional data question. This option is available only for questions with a defined answer list: select list, radio buttons, checkbox list, and true/false; other answer types can be used. When this option is selected, you will see two additional fields, one to specify the question and the other to select a response from the options linked to that question.
Forum Visibility
- Public If the forums module is placed on the public side of the website (where it is read-only by default), anyone will see that this forum exists.
- Club Members Only: If the forums module is placed on the public side of the website, this forum will only be visible to logged-in members.
- Forum Members Only: The forum is shown only to those who are forum members (as well as club administrators and forum module coordinators).