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  • Creating, managing, moderating, and disbanding groups


    This article explains how to create and manage groups and focuses on tasks that group owners, officers, and moderators would typically perform.  Before reading this article, be sure to read Joining and participating in groups for a general introduction to groups.

    Creating a group

    Prerequisites

    Anyone can create a group in Second Life, but remember:

    • It costs Linden dollars to create a group, determined by the founder's membership type:
      • Basic, Plus, and Premium members: L$100
      • Premium Plus members: L$10
    • Any group that has less than two members for 48 hours is automatically disbanded.

    When you create a group, you automatically become the group's owner.  That is, you will be assigned the Owners role. The Resident who initially created a group is also sometimes referred to as its Founder, and the founder's name will always be visible on a Group's information page, even if they leave the group in the future. 

    Note Coded systems within Second Life treat all members with the Owners role the same, meaning that any Owner may change settings within the group, eject members, etc. However, Linden Lab may choose to give certain administrative privileges related to special requests solely to a group's Founder, as the Founder is the only permanent and visible owner that is always associated with a group.

    Group creation process

    To create a group:

    1. Choose Communicate > Groups or right-click on your avatar and choose My Groups.
    2. Click the + button then choose New Group...
    3. Enter the name of the group.
      • The name must be at least four and less than 36 characters long.
      • Every group name must be unique in Second Life; you won't be allowed to create a group that has the same name as an existing group.
      • Please see the list of standard ASCII symbols for available characters (eg. a-z, 0-9, and punctuation like ~@#%*)
    4. Optionally, create a group insignia (image) by clicking on the image thumbnail and then choosing a texture from your inventory.
    5. Optionally, write a brief description of the group.
    6. To make the group open (anyone can join without an invitation) select Anyone can join.  If you don't select this, then only those invited will be able to join.
    7. If you want the group to have a cost to join, select Cost to join and choose a number of L$.
    8. Select the group's maturity rating
    9. Click Create Group and confirm your choice when prompted.

    After you create a group, one of the first things you will want to do is to set up roles and abilities. See Creating new roles for more information.

    Important Once you create a group, you cannot change its name.  So be certain of the name you choose, since you won't be able to rename it!

    Opening the group profile

    To view the profile of a group and modify it (if you have the required abilities):

    1. Choose Communicate > Groups or right-click on your avatar and choose My Groups.
      The People window opens to the Groups tab.
    2. Select the desired group. 
    3. Mouse over the group name and click the View profile button.
      The group profile window opens.

    The group profile window has four sections, described in the following table.
     

    Section Settings you can view and edit What you can do
    (if you have required ability)
    General
    • Group description
    • Member list
    • Whether group is open or closed
    • Cost to join
    • Group maturity rating
    • Whether group is shown in search results
    Change your role
    Roles
    • List of members, their roles, and abilities
    • List of roles and associated abilities
    • List of abilities and which roles have each ability
    Invite new members
    Notices View notice archive and open attachments Send notices
    Land/Assets View land holdings Change your land contribution

     

    Inviting others to your group

    To invite someone to a group to which you belong:

    1. Right-click their avatar and choose Invite to Group
      The Groups window opens, displaying all the groups to which you have permission to invite people.
    2. Select the desired group
    3. Click OK.

    The person immediately sees a group invitation.  You can also invite multiple people at one time.  See Inviting someone to join a group for more information.

    Note Your group must have at least two members within 48 hours or else it will be automatically disbanded!

    Working with group notices

    Group notices are text messages that group members can send to everyone in a group.  All members see the notice immediately if they are inworld; otherwise, they see it when they next log in.  All members also get an email with the notice text.  Group notices can also have attached objects.

    Sending a group notice

    If you have the Send Notices ability, you can send group notices to all the members of a group.  

    To send a group notice:

    1. Open the group profile.
    2. Click Notices to display the Notices section.
    3. Click + New Notice.
    4. Enter the subject and message text for the notice. The combined length of a subject and notice must be 510 characters or less. Additional characters may be truncated from the end of the final notice.
    5. Optional: To attach an object to the notice, click the Inventory button and drag it to the dark grey box.  You must have copy and transfer permissions on the object.
    6. Click Send.
    Important You cannot delete a group notice once you have sent it.  

    Opting out of group notices

     To stop receiving notices from a group:

    1. Open the group profile.
    2. In the General section, deselect Receive group notices.

    You will no longer receive group notices nor get the associated emails.

    Viewing group notice archive

    To view the group notice archive:

    1. Open the group profile.
    2. Click  Notices to display the Notices section.
      You will see a list of all the group notices sent in the last 14 days, up to a maximum of 200 per day.
    3. Click on a notice to see its text; if there is an attached object, click Open Attachment to take a copy of it into your inventory.

    Controlling group visibility

    Note To change these aspects of a group, you need to be the group's owner or have the appropriate abilities in the Roles and Group Identity categories.

    Removing a group from Second Life search

    By default a group will appear in Second Life search results.  To remove it from search results:

    1. Open the group profile.
    2. In the General section deselect Show In Search to remove the group from Second Life search.
    3. Click Save.

    Revealing members' roles

    A group's public profile always shows the group owner.  By default, it also shows members that have the Officers role and any other roles for which you have selected to reveal members. Group members will generally always be able to see the list of members and their roles. For performance reasons, some very large groups may not load a full membership list for anyone but owners, officers, or those with specific moderator powers.

    To reveal members of a given role in a groups' public profile:

    1. Open the group profile.
    2. Click Roles to display the Roles section.
    3. Click the Roles tab.
    4. Select the desired Role Name from the list.
    5. Select Reveal members to show members with the selected role in the group profile.  
      Deselect Reveal members to not show members with the role in the group profile.
    6. Click Save.

    Managing roles and abilities

    Roles determine the abilities group members have and thus what they can do in a group.  Additionally, each group role has a corresponding title.

    Each group can have up to ten roles, including the default roles owner, officer, and everyone.

    For a basic introduction to roles, titles and abilities, see Joining and participating in groups.

    Creating new roles

    To create a new role, you must have the Create new Roles ability.  

    To create a new group role:

    1. Open the group profile.
    2. Click Roles to display the Roles section.
    3. Click the Roles tab
    4. Click New Role.
    5. Enter:
      • Role Name for the new role.
      • Role Title for the role. If you have this role in your active group, the title appears inworld above your avatar name.
      • Description of the role.
    6. Select abilities for the new role under Allowed Abilities.
    Note Group members with the ability to create new roles can only assign abilities they have within their own active role.

    Managing abilities

    Abilities define a role's level of control over group matters such as land, Linden dollars, membership, titles, and so on.

    To see a complete list of group abilities and their descriptions: 

    1. Open the group profile.
    2. Click Roles to display the Roles section.
    3. Click the Abilities tab.
      You will see a list of all abilities.  
    4. Click on an ability to see a description and a list of roles in the group that have that ability.
    Note When Create Objects is set only to Group in the About Land Options tab, it is necessary to wear the group title from the same group the land is set or deeded to in order to rez objects.

    Group moderation

    The Moderate Group Chat ability gives you special capabilities over a group's text and voice conversations.  A person in a role with this ability is called a moderator.  By default, a group's owner and officers have this ability; the ability may also be granted to other members as desired. 

    The moderator can selectively mute the voice and disable text chat from participants in a group chat session.  The moderator:

    • Sees special controls for these actions in the Group chat window.  
    • Is labelled as a Moderator in the list of participants. 

    Moderation abilities are only available in group chat sessions, not local chat nor any other kind of conversation.

    Moderating text chat

    In a group IM session, regardless of whether or not a voice call is in progress, a moderator can disable text chat for individual participants. To do this, if you are a moderator, click on the person's name in the list of participants and deselect Allow text chat for that person.  To re-enable text chat, conversely, select Allow text chat.

    When a moderator disable text chat for someone, that person will not be able to type anything into the text chat field for that group IM session.

    Moderating voice chat

    A moderator can mute voice chat for individual speakers in a group voice call. To do this, if you are a moderator, click the speaker's name in the list of participants and deselect Allow voice chat.  Others in the group chat session will no longer hear that person and their voice dot changes into a "disabled" symbol. A moderator's action overrides everyone else's personal mute settings for that person. For example, even if a third participant did not choose to mute that particular person, he won't hear that person once the moderator disallows the person's voice.

    Default voice chat setting

    The moderator can set the whether new participants in a group voice call have voice enabled or not using the dropdown list at the top Group Call window. 

    Initially the setting is Voices on by default: as new participants join the call, they can speak. Also, everyone's voice who has been disabled will be allowed to speak again, though their voices may be selectively disabled subsequently by the moderator.

    If a moderator sets the default to Voices off by default, then everyone's voices in the call are disabled all at once, and voices will be disabled for all new participants as they join the voice conversation too! This is useful since certain speakers can then be allowed to use voice chat and "have the floor" of the conversation. Even as other participants join the session late with their microphones open, they will not be able to disturb the conversation.

    At any time, a moderator can switch between Voices on by default or Voices off by default.

    Important If the moderator quits the group call, but keeps the setting Voices off by default, it will remain that way until every participant leaves and the session is completely closed. Therefore, the moderator should generally set the session back to Voices on by default before leaving the session.

    Group dividends and liabilities

    A group may receive income, for example if it sells an object deeded to the group or rents out group-owned land.  Such income is referred to as a group dividend.  Group dividends are distributed equally among all group members who have the Pay group liabilities and receive group dividends ability associated with their role. Likewise, all group liabilities are also spread evenly among group members with this ability.

    If no one else in the group has this ability, then group liabilities and dividends are paid to the group's owner.  If there are no enabled accounts in the group that have the Pay group liabilities and receive group dividends ability, then liabilities and dividends are spread evenly between group members.

    The following video tutorial explains group liabilities.

    Leaving a group

    To leave a group:

    1. Go to Communicate > Groups or right-click on your avatar and choose My Groups.
    2. Right-click on the group's name and select Leave.
      You will be prompted to confirm the action.
    3. Click OK to confirm that you want to leave the group. 

    Leaving a group:

    • Removes any land contribution you have given a group (to pay for group-owned land).
    • Removes your ability to edit, change, or sell land held by the group.
    • Makes you ineligible for any pending group dividends.

    After you've left a group, no trace remains on the group's membership list. Group notices that mention your name are not edited automatically, and continue to exist for the usual timespan.

    Note If you're the last owner of a group, you are not allowed to leave it without appointing another person to the role of group owner first.

    Ejecting members from a group

    If you have a role with the Eject Members from this Group ability, then you can remove people from a group.  Exception: you can't remove a group owner.

    To eject someone from a group:

    1. Open the group profile.
    2. Click Roles to display the Roles section.
    3. Click the MEMBERS tab
    4. Select the group member you want to remove.
    5. Click Eject.
    ⚠️ Warning: If you make someone an owner of a group, you won't be able to kick them out of it later. Be careful to whom you assign that role.

    Disbanding groups

    While there's no explicit mechanism for simply deleting a group while it has members, you can disband a group in which you are an owner by ejecting all the other members and making sure nobody new can join the group.

    After 48 hours with a membership of one or zero, a group is disbanded automatically.

    If your group has not disbanded after 7 days despite there being only one member/owner in the group, please contact our customer support team for assistance with disbanding your group.

    Note Once you disband a group, you cannot recreate it. You can create a new group, but the new group cannot use the exact same name as the dissolved group.



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