(OR: How to Stand Out From a Barrel)<\/p>\n
In my last entry, I used a lot of concepts that I might have mentioned in passing in one of my many forums posts, but never wrote down here in the blog in any detail. In fact, in the last entry I used a new term for something that I’ve given many names to over time. I can’t take credit for the final word choice, however. I first heard it from Linden lips in this week’s Groups\/Covenants meetings.<\/p>\n
The word is: ROLE<\/strong><\/p>\n But what is it? If you read the last entry, you should have a good idea of the basics. (And if you haven’t, you probably should. I’ll wait.) But in short, a Role is a “special member” of a group. Well, not THAT special…<\/p>\n Right now, groups have only one special member type: the Officer. Everyone else is a Member. But needs change, and so will groups, so what follows is my take on Roles and how they will work…<\/p>\n Everyone in a group will now be a Member, forever and always, for so long as they are a part of that group. The Member list is everyone that has joined but not yet left the group, regardless of any Roles they may also take on. Roles are like job positions within the group.<\/p>\n When a new group is created, there is only one Role, which I’ll call “Founder”. I made the group, I’m in the Founder Role. I’m also<\/em> in the Membership list. There’s always a Members list, and everyone in the group is always in it. And there is always a Founder Role, with at least<\/em> one person in it.<\/p>\n For both these lists, there is a set of permissions. The permission set for the Founder(s) can not be changed. Founders have full <\/strong>permissions over everything in the group. Unless you truely trust someone, or are passing on the reigns, I’d suggest NOT putting anyone else in the Founder Role. You can remove yourself from the Founder Role only if someone else is in there. To do otherwise would be to disban the group.<\/p>\n If I invite someone to the group without specifying a Role in the invite, they just become basic Members when they join. (Though I can always add them to a Role later, as could anyone else that has the permission to do so.) If I do <\/em>invite them to a Role, then they are part of the Member list AND the Role the moment they join.<\/p>\n The Members list, except for that fact that everyone<\/em> in the group is in it, is otherwise just like a Role. It has a name, a description, a title, and a set of permissions as to what all members can do, just like a Role. The general idea is that this is the most restrictive class of permissions in the group. Any permission granted by a Role will override a lack of permission in the Members list. Meaning, if the Members can’t talk in the group IM window, but one of Bob’s Roles can, then Bob can<\/em> talk in the IM window.<\/p>\n A player can be part of as many Roles as there are in the group. A player’s sum permissions are all the “Can”s from all their Rolls combined. Being removed from a Role will withdraw any granted permissions unique to that Role. When selecting a title to go over your avatar’s head, you pick from both Groups AND Roles. (Hmmm… It may be easier on the system if your current permissions were JUST of your active Role instead of a sum of all your Rolls in alll your Groups. It would be more confusing, though. Anyway, it’s just a thought.)<\/p>\n A Role can be empty, have just one member, or have many. Every member of the group could have his or her own private Role, though I’d hate to have to manage something like that for a large group. More often than not, a group will have just a few rolls, or even just the two you start with… If you are just making a book club.<\/p>\n Now that I’ve gone over Roles here, you might want to go re-read the last two paragraphs of the previous entry and see how the examples there feel, knowing what you now know about this system. Hopefully, it will feel simple and elegant. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n